R-r-read

1. The fangirls.  I was a teenybopper once, so I felt like I could really relate to that aspect of the story. Making up dance routines to your favorite boy band songs and then putting on shows for your parents? Yup, definitely did that several summers in a row.
2. The song lyrics.  I really enjoyed the song quotes spread throughout the story and how they tied back to the plot.

1. The stereotypical characters.  All the characters in this book are over-the-top stereotypes. Even the flaws and imperfections of the narrators have been done a million times before and are entirely too predictable.
2. The West Virginia stereotype.  Being from WV, I always hate hate HATE it when you read a book and there's some creepy, uneducated, dirty hillbilly in the middle of a field who helps the main characters in their charming, ignorant way and teaches them a lesson of humility. This book's WV stereotype is Gerta, a large hilljack mechanic who trades some work on the narrators' van for some manual labor. Yes, there are people like this who live in WV but they are not the norm or even the majority in most areas. End mini rant here.
3. The strange sexual innuendos.  Throughout the book there are many oddly-placed sexual innuendos. While reading, it feels almost like they were tacked onto the dialog after edits to make the characters seem more "hip," but it just comes off as weird.
4. The random southern accents.  I realize the road trip the girls take is into the southern part of the United States, but there are a few times where a person will be talking in perfectly plain English and all of a sudden the next time they speak they have a very heavy southern twang. If you're going to give someone an accent, at least be consistent.

"AND TOGETHER WE WILL WALK
DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET
AND THE CARS, THEY MAY CURSE US
BUT THEY WON'T MAKE US RETREAT"

I wanted to like this book, but I just didn't. I felt like it wasn't very well written or edited and the characters/plot were uninteresting, cheesy, and entirely too predictable.