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Summary: This is a great book!
Review: It's so realistic. I could totally relate to the issues in this book. it's like this group going into all different directions and then snapping back. it's must read. Totally slammin' book.
Rating:
Summary: one of the best ever!
Review: Reading this book, "Among Friends," I could really relate. The Awesome Threesome, made up of Emily, Hillary, and Jennie, have been for friends practically forever. But Jennie is an over-achiever, and Emily and Hillary become jelous. Suddenly, when Emily and Hillary stop talking to Jennie, and Jennie stops associating with them, the Awesome Threesome may not be friendly anymore. Will Jennie, Hillary, and Emily make up? The story is told from the journals of the Awesome Threesome and their classmates, so you get to see the situation from everyone's eyes.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, not great
Review: This a story about a trio of friends. Hillary and Emily are jealous of Jennie's sucess in everything she does. At times this book was unrealistic. I think if you're best friends with someone you don't abandon them because they're sucessful. I was going to give this book a three but the ending was so great I gave it a four. The idea of doing this book through diary entries was great. I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever dealt with friendship problems or jealousy. I would also recommend it to people who like a mysterious character in the books they read.
Rating:
Summary: Among Friends
Review: This book is absolutely amazing. Everyone around the world wants to be like Jenny, popular, taltened, intelligent, but we find out that beneath the surface things aren't always what they seem. Perfection isn't happiness, a lot of the time it isn't perfect at all. This book will inspire you to be more tolerant of those who seem to have everything and through the voices of 'ordinary' people you will find that being average is often the most extarordinary thing of all.
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Summary: The Best Book Ever Written... Period
Review: This book was and always will be the best book ever written. Not only does it face and solve ever adolescent problem you could think of, but it expresses it in a way that is humorous, friendly and caring. The book is told at all point of views by diary entries, but this is not your typical "diary-written" book. The characters are believable - typical, normal teenagers who face problems that you can understand and enjoy. There's "the girl who has everything", the "mysterious boy", the "jealous friends", and "the preppy couple" all telling it like it is, their lives in high school. If you like easy, fun and enjoyable reads for teens, read this book!!!!
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Summary: A very realistic way of portraying high school
Review: This is a story that could have taken place at my own high school. Jennie is a text book example of an over achiever. Cooney's aim was right on target, with all of the characters, including the parents. It astounds me how blind people can be sometimes, and Cooney shows this perfectly. This book is hard for me to read, because I know if Jennie were at my school I would resent her just as much as the students did in this book. I believe this book should be on middle school reading lists across the country, it deals with a lot of important topics.
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Summary: Coming face to face with their lives is very hard for teens.
Review: This story of a girl whose friends are against her because she is successful and beautiful is one of Carolyn B. Cooney's best works. A girl comes face to face with the way the world works. If you accomplish something, everyone's jealous. A boy comes face to face with the reality of his life and his family and doesn't like it. This book is high on my recommendation list for sure.
Rating:
Summary: great book!
Review: This was a really good book. It shows how friends can grow apart, even though they've known each other forever. I strongly recommend this book for 7th-9th grade readers.
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Summary: Jealousy and meanness
Review: This was an amazing book. The characters were very well-developed, and it was a page-turner. It would make a very good tv show. It deals a lot with jealousy issues, and you start to feel bad for prodigy-type people. It was so nasty and mean, however. It was very realistic, though. Teens can be like that. It has the cliche popular, preppy types, and the weird guy--Paul Classified, and then you find out he's not really all that weird. It has a strong moral in it, even though the characters don't really turn around and become super-nice in the end. It can teach youth how NOT to treat people. *L* I read this when I was in high school and then read it again years later. If you want to be a writer and want to learn how to develop your characters, study this book!
Rating:
Summary: Cooney treats the reader with respect...and demands it.
Review: While this book is rightly labelled "young adult" (i.e. it can be appreciated by anyone 13 or older in the main), it is not part of the very low league most teen fiction, such as Sweet Valley High, Sweet Dreams et al. come into; books which neither demand much from or give much back to the readers. Judging by this book on its own, I would rate Cooney as high as the great Paul Zindel for her understanding of teenagers and the typical quandaries of high school. This is surprising, as I do not look upon most of her other books (Point Romance, Cheerleaders etc.) with much regard. However, please read this one. It examines the reality of the machinations of friendship groups, without glossing over the truth. It also pleased me that Emily, the character who bared her soul, to use an awful cliche, the most and showed, I suppose, the most weakness (and on occasions the greatest strength), was fully recognised by Paul Classified in the end. Paul is another character where Cooney has diversified from the norm...if you have ever read a teen novel with a "handsome hunk" in it - the guy whom all the girls are in love with, you'll have some idea of how little substance these characters have. Every girl in the Awesome Threesome's school loves Paul, but we also grow to like him...read it, and you'll see he's far different to all the other high school hearthrobs. Cooney is brutally honest, and does not conclude the story with Jennie's insensitive parents suddenly realising their mistakes and changing...because this would never fully or truly happen after sixteen years of pressure and blindness. It does finish with the protagonist gaining a better "outlook" on life, but this is where one of the novel's few flaws is evident. How Jennie achieves her new perspective is not sufficiently explored, which is a shame as I think many of us would like to know for our own benefit. Ms. Cooney; how about making a trilogy of this one...it is, afterall, your greatest triumph.
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