From Booklist
Gr. 9-12. Sophomores Mads, Holly, and Lina are famous at their alternative high school for the Dating Game Web site, which they created for their Interpersonal Human Dynamics class. Students are flocking to the site to take the sex quiz and find the perfect date, and, of course, the site also helps the girls with their own love problems. Each chapter includes a daily astrology report for the character in focus, and the action is advanced through e-mails as well as straight narrative. The teen concerns in the book are authentic (physical development, nicknames that hurt, crushes on teachers), but their treatment and resolution are uneven--and sometimes unrealistic. Girls waiting for a new A List or Gossip Girl, however, will be well pleased. Cindy Welch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
The Dating Game #1 ANNOTATION
When three high school sophomores set up a weblog as a class project to research whether girls or boys are more sex-crazed -- and to play matchmaker, their own messy love lives become even more complicated.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Meet Madison, Holly, and Lina, the stars of this smart, sexy new series. When the Dating Game Web site they create for a sophomore class project is a smash hit, they become the matchmaking masters of their school and, they hope, their own lives.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
This debut book in the Dating Game series gets its title from an online site that a trio of best friends design for a 10th-grade project, trying to prove that "boys think about sex more than girls." As they prepare quizzes and play matchmaker for themselves and their peers, each of the three struggles with her own romantic dilemma. Madison wants more sexual experience, poetic Lina is in love with her teacher, and curvy Holly has a wild reputation. Even though the girls eventually admit "our scientific technique is not exactly airtight here," it's hard to understand how some of the materials relate to their project. Yet the girls' struggles come across as authentic, and the writing can be both funny and honest (especially Holly's painful experience with "the double standard, how it was good for boys to have a wild rep and bad for girls"). Silly quizzes and online chats pepper the narrative, and each chapter begins with a telling horoscope for one of the protagonists. Readers will not be too surprised by the girls' findings, but they may be disappointed that not all of the plot points resolve (perhaps Breaking Up Is Really, Really Hard to Do, due out in June, will supply the answers); the still-open story line about Lina's growing obsession with her young teacher is especially disturbing. Overall, readers will probably find enough to laugh about and relate to as the trio plans-and plays-The Dating Game. Ages 14-up. (Feb.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Art & Photography
Book Info
