Review: Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig

Title: Pretty Crooked
Author: Elisa Ludwig
Reading level: Ages 13 and up
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (March 13, 2012)

Book Synopsis: Willa's secret plan seems all too simple.

Take from the rich kids at valley prep and give to the poor ones.

Yet Willa's turn as Robin Hood at her new high school is anything but. Bilking her "friends"—known to everyone as the Glitterati—without them suspecting a thing is far from easy. Learning how to break into lockers and Beemers is as hard as she'd thought it would be. Delivering care packages to the scholarship girls, who are bullied just for being different, is more fun than she'd expected.

The complication Willa didn't expect, though, is Aidan Murphy, VP's most notorious ace-degenerate. His mere existence is distracting Willa from what matters most to her—evening the social playing field between the haves and have-nots. There's no time for flirting, especially with conceited trust-funders like Aidan. But when the cops start investigating the string of thefts at Valley Prep and the Glitterati begin to seek revenge, could Aidan wind up being the person that Willa trusts most?

Elisa Ludwig's Pretty Crooked is the first book in an adventurous teen caper series filled with mystery, humor, and heart.

About the Author: Elisa Ludwig studied writing at Vassar College and Temple University. She has been pickpocketed twice, and once caught someone midpocket. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and her cat, Beau. Pretty Crooked is her first novel.

First Impressions: This is another one of those guilty pleasure books that are just so much fun to read. I was in a blah mood and I needed a good laugh and wanted to relax, so I thought this book would be the perfect pick-me-up. Plus, who can resist a good story with a Robin Hood twist? I know I can’t! I also like the fact that the author is from my home state and went to Temple University, which a lot of my high school buddies went to school. Pretty cool!

First 50 Pages: This book is like Robin Hood mixed with The Hills and Jersey Shore, which basically means that it was hilarious at times and downright goofy to boot. It had me giggling from the start and it made me happy to know that there will be more books after Pretty Crooked because the main character is silly and so entertaining to read about. This book moved at a good pace and it only took me a few hours to read the whole thing, so it’s the perfect book to take with you on a short trip to the beach when summer rolls around. The plot was completely cheesy, but I loved it!

Characters & Plot: The plot centers around Willa, a new student at Valley Prep School, who has the very best intentions at heart when she decides to steal from the rich and give back to the poor. The longer she stays at Valley Prep, the more she realizes that there is a huge gap financially between the people who seem to have it all, a group called the Glitterati, and the poor kids who attend the school on scholarship who barely have enough money to make it by. So Willa takes it upon herself to fix everything she sees as wrong by becoming the school’s own undercover, modern day, Robin Hood. Things become increasingly more difficult to pull off her escapades when she starts to fall for Mr. Popularity, Aidan.

Willa was definitely my favorite character in this book. She isn’t the brightest crayon in the crayon box but she has a good heart and meant well. I would say that what she decided to do was wrong and she could have went about raising money in other way besides stealing, but I don’t expect readers to try to steal themselves, and Willa does learn her lesson. She is just too funny not to like! Aidan and Tre were also very likable characters and I’m still curious to learn more about them. Tre was very secretive and I think he will be a larger character in the books to come. While Aidan, the hot guy Willa falls for is adorable, although he can come across as cocky and full of himself. I’m interested to see how these two characters develop as the series continues.

Final Thoughts: I’m not sure what else to say besides that I loved this book! It isn’t something I normally would pick up and read, but I am really glad that I did. It ended up being the perfect book to get me laughing and feeling good. It is as goofy and corny as they come, but it is so worth reading, I promise!

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