Crash Test Love by Ted Michael

Crash Test Love in some ways falls victim to teen cliches but still finds a way in the end to stand out and not fall prey to the predictable.

Henry is the ultimate playboy. He's good with girls - able to read them and figure out who will be an easy hook-up - and has no interest in relationships. All he wants to do is crash Sweet Sixteen parties and find girls. Then he meets one who has him questioning if that's really what he wants out of life. Garrett just moved to town and is done with boys after a recent break-up. As she tries to fit in, the "J-Squad" or the cool girls in school, proposition her with the promise of friendship if she lures Henry into falling in love with her and then publicly breaking his heart. At first she's hesitant but after hearing Henry started a rumor about her, she feels a little payback never hurt anyone. The plan is soon in motion but, of course, they both fall in love and Garrett begins to have second thoughts until it all spirals out of control and they're both left hurt. Will they have a happily ever after or are things just not meant to be for these two characters struggling to figure out how the opposite sex fits into their lives?

Much of the novel seemed to be typical teen cliches - the devious cool girls (we all know about Mean Girls), the bet to break some unsuspecting person's heart, the inevitable falling in love between the predator and prey. That said, it all still worked and I think that the ending saved it from being too cliched by throwing in a touch of reality. One thing I liked was how the author created the main characters' personalities in the way their chapters were written. Henry was into movies so dialogue was written like a script. The author used this format to even show a shift in the character and the way he interacted with the world. However, I didn't really like how he wrote Garrett and her interest in music as randomly the last words would be a song title and the artist in quotes. It was completely random and somewhat annoying. Or else there were "Top three *artist* songs going through my head in relation to *some topic*. I think that it'll really date the book and I wasn't sure if I needed to know the song to get the purpose of the connection or why it was happening. Henry explained why he saw things as a script and I didn't feel Garrett's style was really explained so it was a bit irritating.

This book was a quick read and enjoyable. Despite the cliches it gave a nice dose of reality with regards to relationships.
MMK

NUM8ERS by Rachel Ward

I wrote about THE MARK earlier. Its another teen novel in which a teen can tell when someone is going to die. In that book an aura appears around people 24 hours before their deaths. This book explores whether or not to tell someone they are about to die, what one would do if they knew, if death could be prevented then what might happen. In num8ers Jem sees the date of death for each individual when she looks for the numbers. She has seen such numbers all her life and only recently understood them to be the date of death. She has been in foster care a long time as her parents are dead. Her current home is pretty stable but she is accustomed to skipping school and otherwise being a misfit. Another misfit who has recently started selling drugs for another student and using a little.Spider, becomes friends with Jem. He also frequently skips school and they often spent those days together. Its on one such day that Jem sees a cluster of deaths about to happen that same day, all of the people are near the London Eye Ferris wheel. In panic she runs taking Spider with her. The kids are seen running just as there is an explosion resulting in numerous deaths. They become persons of interest. Believing that no one will believe them innocent of causing the explosion they go on the lam, trying to escape the man-hunt, the law. While fleeing they have a number of harrowing experiences and recognize their true love for each other. Spider is captured, Jem goes into asylum in a church. They are reunited temporarily but tragedy strikes, partly because the reunion occurs on the date Jem sees as Spider's death and she is desperate to stop it. What follows is Jem coming to terms with things and a fairly common resolution - a new life replaces that of Spider's. This is mostly adventure story. I preferred Marked but Numbers is the more popular. JDW 8/9/10