Confessions of an Angry Girl by Louise Rozett ~ Review & Swoon Thursday

I went to the library... finally... and picked up this young adult book that I have had on my to-be-read-pile for sooooo long! I wished I'd picked it up earlier! 

Title: Confessions of an Angry Girl

Author: Louise Rozett

Series: Confessions #1

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Published: August 28th 2012

Buy Now - Amazon | B&N| Harlequin Aus

Rose Zarelli, self-proclaimed word geek and angry girl, has some confessions to make…

1. I'm livid all the time. Why? My dad died. My mom barely talks. My brother abandoned us. I think I'm allowed to be irate, don't you?

2. I make people furious regularly. Want an example? I kissed Jamie Forta, a badass guy who might be dating a cheerleader. She is now enraged and out for blood. Mine.

3. High school might as well be Mars. My best friend has been replaced by an alien, and I see red all the time. (Mars is red and "seeing red" means being angry—get it?)

Here are some other vocab words that describe my life: Inadequate. Insufferable. Intolerable.

(Don't know what they mean? Look them up yourself.)

(Sorry. That was rude.)

I have wanted to read this book for ages … I have no idea what has taken me so long? It was such a great read! My emotions were all over the place as I jumped into Rose’s shoes, and back into high school! I was able to connect with Rose and the teenage drama that she went through. I remember being bullied at school and being a bully to one particular girl, and now I sit back and think high school can really be awful, but for Rose, she dealt with it as best she could.

This book goes through a year of being a freshman, how Rose deals with the loss of her father, how she feels abandoned, not only by her father, but her mother and brother too. She deals with the change into high school, how her friend tries out and gets onto the cheer squad and how their lives go in different directions. Rose is a pretty levelled headed girl, but holds onto her feelings until they explode. She’s lonely, unsure of her path but always has hopes that Jamie will see past her walls.

Even though I live in Australia, I really like to read about how high school operates in America. We don’t have the big Halloween dances or Prom, so I enjoyed seeing what it was like from Rose’s perspective. I could see she was lost at times and had no one to talk to. All the characters introduced gave greater depth to the story, both good and bad: the struggles she had with her best friend Tracy; the difficulties with dealing with a crush on Jamie; how Regina kept hurting Rose emotionally; and how lost she was once her brother Peter left.

I liked how well the author portrayed high school. Any girl in the world who attended high school would be able to relate to this book one way or another. Louise Rozett showed me what it was like to be bullied and all those feelings I had at school resurfaced. I was right there with Rose as her emotions swung, I cried when she thought of her father, was embarrassed talking to or about Jamie and was angry when she had enough and wanted to lash out. Confessions of an Angry Girl was tied together beautifully to create an incredible, emotionally charged journey, that I look forward to continuing. 

“Then you’re not going to get lucky.”
“Not with her.”
“You’re going to have sex with someone else?” I say, furious and clueless.
“No.”
“So how are you going to get lucky?”
The next minute happens in slow motion. Jamie Forta turns to me, puts his warm hand on my neck, and pulls me toward him. It dawns on me that he is about to kiss me, and I panic because I’ve never kissed an older man—I’ve never kissed anyone for real, only while playing stupid games at junior high school parties—and he surely must know everything there is to know because he’s wiser and he’s a bad boy and he gets around and I’m just a silly girl and none of that matters because his lips are on mine and it’s so easy I can hardly believe I worried I wouldn’t know what to do. His thumb strokes my cheekbone while his fingers clasp the back of my neck. His other hand is in my flat and boring hair, pulling down lightly, causing my head to tilt back.

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Lousie Rozett is an author, a playwright, and a recovering performer. She made her YA debut with Confessions of an Angry Girl, followed by Confessions of an Almost-Girlfriend, both published by HarlequinTEEN. The next book in the series, No More Confessions, is due out January 2015. She lives with her 120-pound Bernese Mountain dog Lester (named after Lester Freeman from THE WIRE, of course) in sunny Los Angeles, and pines for New York City. 

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