4 Sniffs Review: PRETENDERS by Lisi Harrison

Title: Pretenders
Series: Pretenders #1
Author: Lisi Harrison
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Poppy
ASIN: B00BAXFBPK
Release Date: October 1, 2013
Source: NetGalley
Links: Goodreads ☆ Amazon

My picture is on page eighteen of Noble High's Phoenix yearbook. I am one of the Phoenix Five. You nominated me. You thought I was one of the most outstanding students in our freshman class. You were wrong.

Still, I accepted my award. I acted special. But I couldn't help wondering what it was like to be that way for real. So I broke into Ms. Silver's safe in the faculty lounge and stole all five of our journals. I'm not exposing them out of jealousy or anger. I'm doing this because I am tired of the lies. The bar is too high, and cheating is the only way to reach it. Instagrams are filtered, Facebook profiles are embellished, photos are shopped, Manti T'eo's girlfriend was a fake...is anything real anymore?

I found the answer in our journals. These are 100 percent real and 100 percent unedited. The proof is in the pages:

We're all pretenders.

It's the start of Freshman year. The year that defines who you are for the rest of high school. And the five students who become the Phoenix Five are the best of the best...or so everyone thinks. PRETENDERS shows us the truth.

I really liked who seamless each journal entry connected to the one before and the one after. I think this is the most drama-ridden book I've read in a very long time. But that drama is what makes PRETENDERS so great. There is so much high school hi jinx that it kept me wanting to know what could possibly happen next. And I can say that anything you can imagine happening to a high schooler, does and probably will happen in the future.

I know that many people didn't like how the book ended from reading previous reviews, but I thought that it ended in the perfect spot. The cliffhanger isn't huge or anything, but I still really want to know what's going to happen next. And that defines a good ending to a book in my opinion.

The Phoenix Five include: Sheridan Spencer, Andrew Duffy, Lily Bader-Huffman, Vanessa Riley, and Jagger.

Sheridan Spencer is a "drama queen" who doesn't have very much confidence, so she acts as a famous celebrity and takes on their attributes. She is obsessed with acting to the point she starts losing her friends, and someone better than her shows up to take the spotlight.

Andrew Duffy wants to be on the Varsity basketball team more than anything, and gets himself into some trouble trying to make that happen.

Lily Bader-Huffman was home schooled until she convinced her parents to allow her to go to public school with her best friend. She has a kind of scary obsession with Andrew and well...I'll just leave it at that.

Vanessa Riley uses achievement as a way to cope with her parents constant fighting. But when her grades drop, she goes to drastic measures to fix it.

And Jagger is an emancipated, enigmatic loner, who has a big secret.

Now when these 5 cross paths anything can happen. From the good and the bad. At first you wouldn't think that these five would have anything in common at all, but that is so far from the truth. I really liked seeing the way the connection between them all was forged. Even the smallest thing could possibly have a huge impact on them. And I can't wait to see what else these guys can get themselves into.

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