(I picked this up because of the cover way back when. Not ashamed.)
Lexi Anderson attends a lot of beauty pageants. One would think this is because she's a contestant.
Wrong.
Her little sister is.
Mackenzie is only seven, but she's been on the mini beauty queen track practically since birth, meaning Lexi's been dragged along to a lot of these things, mostly so Mac can take full advantage of Lexi's sewing skills.
Lexi just wants to save up enough money to go to NYC for the summer and take some fashion courses, but her mother's near constant demands for more money to spend on Mackenzie is taking a toll on her. Lexi's also tired of coming in second to every boy in the school because they'd rather date someone with great looks over someone with a great personality.
So she and her best friend Benny make a deal. Every time she actually dresses up for school and/or flirts with a guy, he has to make another move on the guy he likes in return. At first, it all seems to work out: Lexi gains some confidence from looking good, she gets asked out by one of the cutest boys in school, and she's even getting noticed by the boy she actually likes. And then it starts falling to pieces.
Mom steals money from Lexi's bank account to fund Mackenzie's next pageant. Mac starts saying that she wants to stop doing pageants, though their mother doesn't listen. And Lexi's dad, who is usually the most honest with her, drops the bombshell that he's engaged and living with another woman.
What's a girl to do? Show her mother that it's about time she listened to her daughters, that's what.
I won't lie, this book is basically the novel version of a rom-com. (Though Lexi does end up single, so it's maybe not 100% similar.) It's short, it's easy to plow through, and it's not chock-full of life-changing, inspiring affirmations. But that doesn't mean it's not good.
Lexi actually grows a lot as a character in this book, learning what it really means to be a good friend, a good sister, and a good person. She's also very genuine - when she starts understanding how to really be herself and take responsibility for her actions, it doesn't feel tired or like Eulberg is pushing some kind of moral standard. She's a teenage character who reminds me of actual teenagers today, not what the author thinks teenagers are or the teenagers the author knew when they were young.
I also love Benny's inclusion in this novel. He's a closeted gay kid in the middle of Texas whose parents are pretty religious, but he's still willing to go out and catch the guy he really likes, and I like that kind of bravery in a person. What I like more, though, is that Eulberg doesn't make him a standard Gay Best Friend character. Yes, he likes seeing Lexi get all dolled up, but he also likes wearing t-shirts with 80s references screenprinted on them and playing around in his game room. He's a person, not a plot device, and I want to see more characters like him.
I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the pageants, so here goes: I really like how they're handled. Even though Lexi hates them, she really only hates them for the younger kids and for how her family specifically isn't actually being helped by them. She admits that they can help other families come together and that they do give girls some poise (and maybe some scholarship money), so they're not all bad. They're also not written in a satirical way that invites the reader to laugh at them - I mean, outside of using technical terms like "butt glue." That's naturally funny, man. I don't watch Toddlers and Tiaras or any other show like that, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that RotGwtGP handles pageants more respectfully than they do.
Overall, Revenge is a classic breezy summer read. It's pretty fast-paced, it's not arrogant, and it's enjoyable more than anything else. It's also genuinely well-written and believable, so it doesn't feel like a waste of time, either. Four stars.
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