I’ve always known Showalter’s works are always from unique plots, those that are very unusual, but a book that features virtual game combined with Goths and Barbie clones? Way unusual, and very intriguing.

It’s a story that presents the reader how some people would want to show heir individuality even to the extent that they would bend all rules to show that they are special and that they are not one of the crowds, they stand out. That was the case of Jade Leigh, and that’s why she hated Mercedes Turner as long as she could remember, because Mercedes is the popular girl, the girl who every boy Jade’s like wants to be with, the girl who always stand out without others calling her freak and Jade was everything but the opposite; until the exchange in the virtual game they were forced to enter as their punishments for their misconduct.

They were forced into a game were their roles were reversed from the reality. Jade become the crowd’s darling, the one everyone wants a piece of while Mercedes become the freak; she is the one everyone laughs at. Much worse, their own sets of friends become their enemies. Now, if they want to get back to the real world, they have to work together, but Jade begins to like being the one everyone gives attention at, especially when Clarik, the new guy who seems really interested with her begins to make his intention clear: he really likes Jade, the outcast in the real world, the girl no guy ask for a date, the girl who was pushed, tripped and was called a freak outside the game.

Jade and Mercedes begin to see in their new roles how each of them had misjudged each other and that in their lives, they could have different personalities and still they would be special on their own unique ways and that those people who love them would support them no matter what.

This story is a good eye opener when things get rough and you feel that you are becoming a judgmental person, someone who doesn’t bother to get to know a person to set her mind to classify others. This might be a simple story but I really liked it and I think that Showalter has proved one more time how good a writer she is.