This book was nothing like I expected. I really thought it was going to be a fantasy having to do with Dante’s Inferno. Oh well, shows how much I can tell looking at the cover.
Dante – who used to be Emily but recently changed her name – is not the most happy teenage girl on the planet. She hates her school and her best friend Beth moved away over the summer. Only Beth was more than a friend, but no one knows that.
When she meets a mysterious girl, Parker, outside the school, she finds herself drawn to her and questioning everything in her life except the feelings she has for this girl. Parker takes her under her wing, bringing her into a group that has big plans to change the world.
I pretty much read this in one sitting and really enjoyed it. Dante’s feelings all seemed very real from her sadness at the loss of her almost girlfriend to her stilted relationship with her parents. I liked that even though Dante is coming to terms with the fact that she is into girls, this isn’t a coming out story. She doesn’t even want to tell her parents yet, which in my experience is exactly how that sort of thing happens.
The group of teens trying to change the world are pretty much dumb and short sighted, but that’s exactly what they are meant to be. They talk big and have big plans and Dante is drawn to them because they are thinking outside the box. This could have gone a lot farther than it did, and I’m glad the author held back.
This is one of those books that really captures a very small bit of someone’s life. There is a lot that isn’t fully summed up, which may bother some people. Heck, it usually bothers me. I guess Dante’s immediate story was played out fully and that made it easier for me to accept some of the loose ends. Overall I would recommend this book.