An extremely tragic story about two disillusioned girls. Lisa spends most of her time with her best friend Celeste and her family. Things at home haven’t been good for years, and she envies the wonderful life Celeste has. One summer when Lisa and Celeste are bored, they make friends with two older men and spiral down a path of self-destructive. Boyden starts this book off with a relatively normal plot. It’s just two teenage girls making bad decisions. It quickly turns into a shit storm of bad de More...

Or best friends for life on speed and punk rock. This sums up Pretty Little Dirty by Amanda Boyden. Taglines of a novel that falls short in the way of genius, but is at least entertaining.

Boyden’s main character, Lisa, is self-loathing, short tempered and short-sighted. She worships her best friend—which I can understand being prone to best friend worship myself—but fails to recognize the love she receives back. It is an error in perception that she also inflicts upon her mentally ill mother. Sh More...

Surprising ending. I really enjoyed this book. I felt the happiness. I felt the pain. But while I enjoyed it, I can imagine this book isn't for everyone.

Lisa sees the life of her gorgeous best friend, Celeste Diamond, as just about perfect: she has a gigantic house, two older sisters to coach her through the hazards of high school, and loving, lively parents. As Lisa's own home has long been a place devoid of joyful noise, she joins the Diamond household, slipping into their routine of sit-down More...

Wow. This book very much mirrors my life as a teenager/young adult although these girls overachieved more than I did and also fell further. I know some people will bristle at the "poor little rich girl" element of it but I felt it really showed what it's like when you're trying to break away from unrealistic pressures and expectations. Boyden really captured the way that teenage girls are when they are stretching their world view and exploring their sexuality. I could really relate to a lot of i More...

Growing up can be a hard thing, yet it’s something we all go through. Some of us earlier in life and some later. In Amanda Boyden’s Pretty Little Dirty you see both. You see the beauty of becoming of age and you see the ugly. You see it through someone who’s going through it. However, as an adolescent myself I feel that this book could potentially teach other kids like me to take the wrong path. Such as, drugs and alcohol. On the other hand, it shows you the consequences if you do take the wrong More...

From Amazon: Lisa sees the life of her gorgeous best friend Celeste as just about perfect: she has a gigantic house, two older sisters to coach her through the hazards of high school, and loving, lively parents. As Lisa's own home has long been a place devoid of joyful noise—her mother has shut herself off in her bedroom for years—Lisa joins the Diamond household, slipping into their routine of sit-down suppers and soaking in the delicious normalcy of Diamond family life. But what begins as the More...

This book talks about a childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood that doesn't match mine at all, but while reading it I feel like it could have been mine. There's an intensity to it that I really love.

It's the story of two girls who are best friends from sixth grade to the first year in college. They're smart and yet they're ultimate bad girls.

I will definitely re-read this.

Just finished this book a few day ago and it is still weighing on my mind.
Lisa starts her narration at the age of 12 when she first meets her best friend and partner in crime (literally!). Both girls are very gifted, smart and attractive although Lisa only see's these qualities in Celeste and has rather low self esteem herself. The main part of the book is all about their lives from the age of 12 through high school and thier very special freindship. However this book is not the warm fuzzy kind More...

Pretty Little Dirty is the debut novel by Amanda Boyden. The book, which seems loosely based on Boyden's life, was wonderfully written. It tells the story of two best friends, Lisa and Celeste, and follows them from the time they meet in sixth grade, through their mid-20s. Not only does the book follow their friendship, it also portrays the idea of two young women trying to find themselves, all the while getting lost. The book starts in Missouri and follows the girls into college in Wisconsin an More...

As a mom, this book terrified me. As a reader, it enthralled me. I read so much that I don't recommend that many books to my husband. This is one I insisted he read.

Ugh. Wasted time. Wasted trees.

This book made me turn my back on a 'reading rule' that I set upon myself: "Once you start a book, FINISH IT".

I didn't. I had stopped and started this book about three times, and well, I'm official done. This time I got further, but I stopped mid-way in and thought, "Life is too dang short for me to abuse myself by reading this crap any longer."

See, I always try to be a good little reader so I can give a real objective review without someone rattling to me: "But More...

This book, which is a coming of age tale of two young women in the seventies, may have been a "gutsy debut" work, but I couldn't find any coherence in the story's events. The "scandalous" or "erotic" events which apparently shape these girls' lives seem of no real use other than to shock the audience -- this, to me, is not art.

There were, however, instances of good descriptive language, both objective and subjective, with interchange and balance between the two. Overall, however, I do not recom More...

lost potential is a bitter pill for me to swallow (when i start falling in love with a book i really resist falling out of love with it) but, alas, lost potential is exactly the situation of "pretty little dirty" -- a tale of two best friends growing up in kansas city during the late 70's and 80's. their dynamic together is endearing -- one friend (celeste) is a kind-hearted beauty while the other friend (lisa, also the narrator) is a witty adventure-seeker. both girls have issues at home and th More...

I had the occasion to meet the author, Mrs. Boyden, one memorable evening at Handsome Willy's in New Orleans the night of the Saints/Bears game to decide who would go to the Super Bowl in 2007. Sitting at the bar I and the entire bar were reveling in a rare opportunity. Mrs. Boyden was on my left while her husband, Mr. Boyden, also a writer, shmoozed in the crowd. As we were obviously both routing for the same team, in a town like New Orleans where pretension is truly non-existent, we had a very More...

I didn't think this one was quite what it advertised itself to be. I don't think the writing was bad, but the whole thing seemed like kind of a sloppy first draft to me. There wasn't enough tension and building leading up to the climax, although you sort of know all along where the book is headed; it was more like "This is what happened the first year," and "This is what happened the second year," and so on and so on till college, when it was as though the author realized she was 300 pages deep More...

Coming-of-age books are my favorite (how many times have I said this?), so I judge these types of books way more harshly. I've read two beautifully written coming-of-age books this year. Pretty Little Dirty isn't one of them. Was this book horrible? No. However, it was one of those books that took me way too long to read due to lack of enthusiasm on my part. Any book that turns you off of reading for awhile doesn't deserve much praise, even if the book isn't the worst you've ever read. This book More...

The first half of this novel is outstanding. Celeste and Lisa have a friendship that outshines even the best aspects of this book. It transfers the reader back in time forty years and shoots us straight into the plot.
I loved the voice and emotion.
The second half, though remaining in its clear voice and character, almost turns into literotica. Though I realize the teenage years are full of pornographic things, the sudden turn toward literotica ruined the book for me.

While I'm not going to call this great literature, my heart always goes out to the punk rock girls of the late 70s and early 80s, and Boyden paints an authentic picture of disaffected suburban youth from California. The pace never lags, the story is always compelling, and the characters exhibit the growth that is so rare in other literature (and it certainly isn't chick lit that ever descends into the worst excesses of that tired trope).

I still don't know why Celeste was so amazing...I know she was beautiful and had that "it" factor...but I guess otherwise it was just the best friend envy/worship thing.
I saw the characters as shallow overall and the story seemed to go on on and with no depth either.
I had read Babylon Rolling first and thought it was excellent...complex characters in a well-developed storyline...so I was definitely disappointed here.

Sometimes you start a book with the feeling you might not like it or that somehow it's just another book of rich teens and their angst. But then the writer creates a story that pulls you in and makes you care against your wishes, against your better judgement. This book has done this to me. A story of two friends navigating their own sense of rebellion in the late 70's/early 80's, a story of best friends and a meditation of beauty and its impact on their world.

I thought that it was a great book. It was extremely well written as well as had a lot of meaning behind it. Many people were saying that the author only showed the side of drugs and sex that do not have a bad side but I believe that it is up to the reader to determine what they think of it. Personally I read the book and was fascinated by it but I understood that I would never do the things that they did in this book. I believe that I will read the book again in a couple years. It was extremely More...

I have to admit I'm a sucker for any female coming-of-age story. That being said, this is NOT the type of easy, light reading one might pick up and read by the pool. It's darker, more depressing, and a lot more graphic than I had expected. However, I loved this story and have re-read it several times since I purchased it a few years ago.

I could review this in my own words, but really I'd just be ripping off what I feel is the perfect description of this novel: "Pretty Little Dirty tales a classic coming-of-age tale and turns it inside out, then gives it a few kicks in the head for good measure. Funny, sexy, inventively told, and scary as hell - a gutsy debut." -Dani Shapiro

I read this while in college so I am a little hazy on fhe details. I know it is a book I would never recommend to say, my mother as it is full of drugs and really graphic sex. However, I did appreciate how the book paints a great picture of how a life of beauty can so quickly spiral out of control.

My friend Ginny at McGill always says that when she reads a novel or sees a film about train-wrecky, doom-haunted girls she always asks herself a question: would DoctorM date these girls? In this case--- Celeste and Lisa, the heroines of Amanda Boyden's "Pretty Little Dirty", the answer is clearly Yes. Both of them. Instantly.

"Pretty Little Dirty" is a dark, funny, sexy, scary coming-of-age noir novel that follows the two heroines from a posh Kansas suburb to early '80s punk and hardcore clubs i More...

Amanda Boyden faultlessly captures the life of two best friends going down a very different path than others. This book makes me tear up because it makes me think of me and a friend of mine about two years ago, but seriously that's how good and honest it is. It's perfect.

Enjoyable read. I liked the book and got sucked in by the characters, but can't say I loved it and I'm not sure if I'd recommend it to a friend. I didn't care for the end (in regard to Celeste). A fun read though, one that I think anyone who was once a teenager (especially a teenage girl!) could enjoy.

I really enjoyed this book - It was a bit graphic, and hard to read at times, but it brought out a wide range of emotions while reading it. All and all, I thought it was a worthwile read and I look forward to future books by Amanda Boyden.