Very LeFreak (ebook)

Very is just so very.  She is very free, very fun, very irresponsible, very addicted.  She is addicted to all her technological gadgets, but she can't see the danger in allowing herself to become wrapped up in an online world while shutting down any real connections in real life.  After an altercation with one of her so-called friends, Very is sent to technology rehab.  But can Very stop being Very LeFreak and become just Veronica?

Who could sleep when a heart longed so badly and only ABBA understood? p.13 (ish on ebook)

There is a little bit of irony, I think, in reading Very LeFreak on an e-reader.  I realized it when I downloaded it and started reading it.  But anyway, I'm a big fan of Rachel Cohn and so I just had to read her new book.  I liked it a lot.  Like Gingerbread and the like, Cohn doesn't shy away from gritty details so Very LeFreak has a lot of sexual details, nothing pornographic or anything though.  But these details are important as they reflect how Very feels about herself and why she behaves the way she does.  I have had friends similar to Very; ones who want to be protected, want to be the fun ones, and who self-destruct so very fast.  So I identified a lot with her friends and I felt like I knew who Very really was.  I've heard her story before in other different ways.  And sometimes they turn out happy and sometimes not.  Very lives on the surface so she doesn't have to see what is underneath.  But I was pleased by her transition through the book.

I truly believe that there is such a thing as a technology addict.  I've borderlined on it myself until I realized what I was doing.  Compulsively checking Twitter or Facebook or my e-mail,  I've done that before.  But I have things in my life that are worth looking up from a computer screen for and so did Very though she didn't realize it at the time.  And I can believe in her breakdown because what her friend did so intrusive and wrong. I also believed in her rehabilitation.  It was good to have a young adult book about a girl not be so much about a relationship, but about the girl herself.

And for the people who said they would be bothered by her name being Very, you get use to it and it makes sense for the character.

*highlight for spoiler*

I was glad that she got together with Lavinia(Jennifer).  I was afraid that Brian, the boy she sleeps with at the beginning, would turn out to be who she ends up with and after he invaded her privacy like that, I would have been disgusted.  But the relationship between the girls seemed very organic and so surprising while not being shocking since there were a lot of hints thrown around.

*end spoiler*