21 Proms Review
The first book that I read in 2015 was 21 Proms this was a book written by twenty-one authors. They all wrote a story about a prom, most were made up but I think one or two may have been the proms of the authors. I found some of these stories to be really fun, and some not so fun, and overall I gave the book 4 out of 5 stars because the ones I liked I really liked. I’m going to go over what I rated the stories one by one, and then I’ll describe the really good ones, and the ones I didn’t like that much in a little more detail.
“You Are A Prom Queen, Dance, Dance, Dance” by Elizabeth Craft (2/5)
“All She Wants” by Cecily von Ziegesar (2/5)
“In Vodka Veritas” by Holly Black (1/5)
“Your Big Night” by Sarah Mlynowski (3/5)
“Off Like a Prom Dress” by Billy Merrell (3/5)
“Mom called, she says you haave to go to prom” by Adrienne Maria Vrettos (4/5)
“Better Be Good to Me” by Daniel Ehrenhaft (5/5)
“Three Fates” by Aimee Friedman (5/5)
“The Question: A Play in One Act” by Brent Hartinger (3/5)
“Shutter” by Will Leitch (1/5)
“Geechee Girls Dancin’, 1955” by Jacqueline Woodson (1/5)
“How I Wrote to Toby” by E. Lockhart (4/5)
“Six-pack of Bud, a Fifth of Whiskey, and Me” by Melissa de la Cruz (3/5)
“Primate the Prom” by Libba Bray (1/5)
“Apology #1” by Ned Vizzini (5/5)
“See Me” by Lisa Ann Sandell (4/5)
“Prom for Fat Girls” by Rachel Cohn (3/5)
“Chicken” by Jodi Lynn Anderson (2/5)
“The Backup Date” by Leslie Margolis (4/5)
“Lost Sometimes” by David Levithan (4/5)
“The Great American Morp” by John Green (5/5)
Like I said I’m going to be explaining my least favorites and my favorites, I have four of each. We’ll start with my least favorites.
“In Vodka Veritas” was about a boy who decided with his friend to not go to prom and get drunk instead, and then his friend stood him up and went to prom. When the boy was walking around outside the prom the Latin Club came up to him and gave him a vile to drink so he wouldn’t be affected. The reason I didn’t like this one that much was because honestly I didn’t understand it. It didn’t make sense, and I didn’t get what was going on with the boys, or the Latin Club.
The next one I didn’t like, “Shutter”, was told in the point of view of a single father, whose daughter didn’t ever really like her mom enough to care about her leaving. This one I couldn’t tell what the relationship was between the father and daughter. I didn’t really understand if the author wanted up to think that the daughter was in love with the dad or not. It wasn’t all that clear.
“Geechee Girls Dancin’. 1955” was a story about a prom back in the slave days. I don’t want to say that I hated it because of that, but I just didn’t like the writing style so it made it hard for me to read and I ended up just skimming the story. The grammar was like something I would read in Junie B. Jones in 3rd grade.
The last one that I rated one of five stars was “Primate the Prom” by Libba Bray. The reason I didn’t like this one had everything to do with the story. The writing was fine, but I just felt really uncomfortable reading it. It’s about two boys who like each other because one looks like a gorilla. They go to prom and there are several other couples are like this too. I just didn’t like that it was sexualizing monkeys. It was a weird concept that I just didn’t like.
The first one I gave five stars to was “Better Be Good to Me”. This story was just so cute. But to start off I really enjoyed the writing style of this one, or at least the way it was approached. It was told in the perspective of a father writing a letter to his daughter about his prom, and that’s how him and his wife lost their virginity and started kind of dating. Is was just cute and it’s the dream of so many people to be high-school sweethearts with the person they go to prom with and this was what this story was.
The next five star story was “Three Fates” this one was about a girl who didn’t have a date to prom and her friends did, so desperate she asks a boy in her English class and he declines, she goes home and basically asks her brother who no one knows to go with her and he too declines. In one final attempt she asks an old friend who lives a little while away but he says he’s busy. The night of prom she’s under the impression that she’s just going “stag” when all three of the handsome guys show up to take her. It was just over all very cute and the writing style didn’t make me want to jab my eyes out either.
“Apology #1” was another five star story, there isn’t a huge reason why. I mean I like the guy and how he writes, but the story was (if I’m correct) true. And to me the guts it told him to write about that was impressive. I wouldn’t like to admit and talk so openly about something like that. He talked about how he stood a girl up at her prom that she invited him to. And it was just an interesting story on top of all the guts.
The final five star story was “The Great American Morp” this was the story by John Green. I like John Green but I wasn’t expecting to like this one the best. It’s about this girl and her parents become the photographers at her prom so her and her friend decide not to go to prom and throw a Morp at her house. The morp is all of the people that they life the best and they all dress up in ridiculous things and they have a band play and everyone just has a great time.
This book was edited by David Levithan and Daniel Ehrenhaft. There were also several four star stories, but I didn't want to have an even longer post. Thank you to anyone reading this!
Best Wishes,
Carlie
