The Unwritten Rule by Elizabeth Scott

Breaking the friendship code..., May 8, 2010

This review is from: The Unwritten Rule (Hardcover)

Before you read further, go buy Scott's novel Living Dead Girl -- now there's a novel that will appeal to YA readers everywhere.

I'm not sure why most of the reviewers think this book was so great. To me, it seemed such a cliché of bad friendship, high school, and the mean person getting her comeuppance. Frankly, I can only imagine that the positive reviews from the book are either from women who have "stolen" their best friend's boyfriend or from those who wish they could. The justification for Sarah and Ryan getting together seems to be that Brianna was the "bad friend" who put Sarah down. I am not buying into that whole cliché that Brianna got what she deserved. Sarah was not a good, honest friend to her. Sure Brianna had lots of issues -- and her parents were also portrayed as very one-dimensional as were all the characters in this novel -- but was she deserving of her boyfriend and her so called best friend going behind her back? What prevented them from being upfront and honest from the beginning? Immaturity. I had no respect for either.

There's a reason for this "unwritten rule" among girlfriends, and a code that exists because of the potential for ruining friendships and destroying long held trust between girls who've been together long before any boy came on the scene. I'm staunchly on the side of "if your best friend dated him, he's off limits forever" position.

In this novel, Scott makes Brianna so bad that it sort of ends up justifying Sarah's cheating on her friend and taking her boyfriend. And why, if Ryan did like Sarah so much, did he go out with Brianna in the first place AND why didn't he break up with her long before the 2 month anniversary. His total passivity and weakness make him a totally unappealing male character -- what? he can't help himself when enveloped into Brianna's life? Please. It's insulting to teenage boys everywhere -- they can't choose who they go out with and they go out with a girl when they like another?

I think the author took liberties with an old tired plot line -- and I was sorely disappointed in this totally predictable teen romance novel that rationalizes and excuses dishonest behavior. I think that the discriminating young adult novel reader will see through this thin device and the "happy ending" that has broken an "unwritten rule"...I would still advise girls to stay away from their best friend's boyfriend.

Let me know what you think!!

Ms C.