Jennie was right. This book was terrible. Please refer to her review, because she's much more concise and understandable than I am. If she hadn't read it first, I might not have hated it so much, but she did and saved me from idiotic, mindless book-appreciation. I mean, it was engaging and well-written, but the character really was kind of an idiot. She matured, which is always a plus, but she makes a big deal about potential boyfriends doing good, noble works with their careers, when hers will have to do with fashion. An unavoidable necessity in today's cultures, yes; prone to good and noble works, definitely not. And she doesn't even realize the hypocrisy.

And her thesis! I almost died! It was terrible! As a writing tutor, I wanted to sit her down and ask her what the hell she was thinking. I really hope there was more going on in her notebook than what was printed up in the book, becuase: One, that is not a 50-page paper of any kind. Maybe 12. Two, that is not a thesis. At all. Sure, it was cute in an insipid, my-brain-doesn't-function kind of way. But if someone brought that in to the Writing Center for a thesis, we'd have read through it once and spent the rest of the hour on a crash course in writing papers. Three, she mentions some crazy stuff (lemon rind and alligator dung as birth control on pg. 33, for example) without any kind of sourcing. And four, she made some pretty crazy claims in there about the history of fashion, like the idea that the steel hoop skirt "was also responsible for hundreds upon hundreds of young picnicking ladies being torched by lightning" (pg 178). Where's the evidence? The documentation? The death certificates that say "COD: Lightning strike due to steel hoop skirt"?

Now, I know that this is a fictional thesis written by a fictional character in a fictional major. But if you're going to include excerpts of your fictional character's fictional thesis, at least make it look like a real thesis. I thought the whole idea behind this "realistic fiction" thing was to make it like reality. In reality, a thesis like the one Ms. Nichols wrote would be posted to some teachers-only online forum for whenever some poor college professor needed a humorous pick-me-up after a horrid day of grading first-year exams. It would be a laughingstock! Which is, unfortunately, what this book will now be known as at my home. I was going to go through it and write in pen about how idiotic Lizzie is, but now I don't know if I can handle going through it all again. Maybe Jennie and I can just add it to a bonfire this summer.