ME AND MY INVISIBLE GUY by Sarah Jeffrey

Title: Me and My Invisible Guy
Author: Sarah Jeffrey

Summary

High school junior and cheerleader Mallory Dane has a secret.  Actually, she has a few, though they aren't all hers to tell.

Her secret is Todd, her boyfriend that doesn't really exist. Though Mallory is tired of her fictional relationship with her made-up boyfriend, she can't seem to admit to anyone, even her best friend Tess, that she has been lying.

Then there's Liam Crawford, the new student that Mallory can't stop thinking about.  Mallory must make a choice: keep Todd and all of her lies, or tell Liam the truth and start a relationship with a real person.  But her secret isn't the only one on the line, and if she isn't careful, Mallory may end up revealing the secrets of those closest to her and lose more than her fictional boyfriend.

My Impression

Though I wasn't really surprised about Mallory's initial motivation for creating Todd, I was surprised about the number of other secrets she had to deal with.  Mallory's home life is anything but perfect, and the same can be said for her friend Tess.  Not only does Mallory have to keep her family's (and particularly her sister Darby's) situation a secret from everyone, she also tries to help Tess out with her own family situation without revealing her friend's secret.  I liked that this book was about more than just the lies Mallory told about Todd, and that not all of the secrets were something as simple as a fictional boyfriend.

At the same time, there are always consequences for keeping secrets.  This book does a really good job of showing the fallout that can come from telling the truth, as well as the social pressures and stigmas that are a part of high school.

One topic of this book is abstinence and the role that sex plays in the lives of teenagers, as well as the peer pressure to lose your virginity. While the topic was relevant to Mallory and the plot of this story (I won't reveal how), I was worried that the "moral of the story" was that abstinence is the way to go.   The book shows a lot of sides to the topic, such as how there are not necessarily always bad implications to having sex and how there are negative connotations sometimes associated with being abstinent. After finishing the book I still feel that the book was a bit heavy-handed with its attempt to promote abstinence; however, I think the main goal in this book's use of the topic was not to criticize teenagers who do have sex, and that its main purpose is to criticize the social pressure to have sex.

Why I Picked Up This Book

I found this book on NetGalley, and I was intrigued by Mallory and her "relationship" with Todd..  I wanted to know what would cause a girl who seemed to have it all to lie about something like a relationship.

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary Fiction, Romance
My Rating: Three Stars