Author: Andrea Portes                     
Publisher:  Harper’s Children
Genre: Young Adult
Source:  BEA

Goodreads:  This emotional, hilarious, devastating, and ultimately triumphant YA debut, based on actual events, recounts one girl’s rejection of her high school’s hierarchy—and her discovery of her true self in the face of tragedy.

Fall’s buzzed-about, in-house favorite.

Outside, Anika Dragomir is all lip gloss and blond hair—the third most popular girl in school. Inside, she’s a freak: a mix of dark thoughts, diabolical plots, and, if local chatter is to be believed, vampire DNA (after all, her father is Romanian). But she keeps it under wraps to maintain her social position. One step out of line and Becky Vilhauer, first most popular girl in school, will make her life hell. So when former loner Logan McDonough shows up one September hotter, smarter, and more mysterious than ever, Anika knows she can’t get involved. It would be insane to throw away her social safety for a nerd. So what if that nerd is now a black-leather-jacket-wearing dreamboat, and his loner status is clearly the result of his troubled home life? Who cares if the right girl could help him with all that, maybe even save him from it? Who needs him when Jared Kline, the bad boy every girl dreams of, is asking her on dates? Who?

Anatomy of a Misfit is Mean Girls meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Anika’s hilariously deadpan delivery will appeal to readers for its honesty and depth. The so-sad-it’s-funny high school setting will pull readers in, but when the story’s dark foreboding gradually takes over, the devastating penultimate tragedy hits like a punch to the gut. Readers will ride the highs and lows alongside funny, flawed Anika — from laughter to tears, and everything in between.

Ope’s Opinion:  Let me start with explaining my rating for this book – I think I am the wrong reader for this book.  I do think some teens will really relate to and like Anika.  I think she was very negative and sort of a snob in her own way.  She may have had a rough life ( lots of us do ), but that made a shell on her that made me jsut not really care for her character enough to want things to be better for her.

The writing was another stumbling block for me.  The descriptions of people were hard to relate to.  I don’t think there was a positive description, except maybe Anika’s mother.  I believe the word “like” was over used in this book.  The way the students talked about other students was offensive.  Even if this is realistic, I don’t think I want to encourage teens to read this and reinforce that language.

The ending of this book was hard to get to, but almost made me give this book three chairs instead of two.  So you may be willing to read through it to get to the end.

Rating:  Two Chairs – I may have one friend who might like to read this book.