Review: Life By Committee

Life by Committee Life by Whatever strangers tell me to do next because I don't have one.
Author: Corey Ann Haydu

Publication Date:  May 13th 2014        

~A copy was provided by Katherine Tegen Books in exchange for an honest review~

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Some secrets are too good to keep.
Tabitha might be the only girl in the history of the world who actually gets less popular when she gets hot. But her so-called friends say she’s changed, and they’ve dropped her flat.

Now Tab has no one to tell about the best and worst thing that has ever happened to her: Joe, who spills his most intimate secrets to her in their nightly online chats. Joe, whose touch is so electric, it makes Tab wonder if she could survive an actual kiss. Joe, who has Tabitha brimming with the restless energy of falling in love. Joe, who is someone else’s boyfriend.

Just when Tab is afraid she’ll burst from keeping the secret of Joe inside, she finds Life by Committee. The rules of LBC are simple: tell a secret, receive an assignment. Complete the assignment to keep your secret safe.

Tab likes it that the assignments push her to her limits, empowering her to live boldly and go further than she’d ever go on her own.

But in the name of truth and bravery, how far is too far to go?

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Secret: I want to hit this book.

Assignment: Do it.

Ohhh, there are a lot of things I have to say about Life By Committee. So, the good news or bad news first? Hmm.

The good news? It's short, and for a fraction there, you might think it has some deeper meaning.  Kudos.

I'm not going to lie, it's a struggle to get through because you want to strangle every character in this book. I dare you. But, it's a growth story, it really is. Tabby lost her shit in a very, very bad way. The things she does, the things people say to her, the way her parents and generally the whole population of this weird twilight zone town acts towards her, you can't really blame her. I'm not saying the things she does is right, because it's really not but it was fun for once to have a character that get's shit talked about and she does something about it. Though Tabby's pretty awful at times, I get so tired of characters that feel sorry for themselves (which she does), whose a glutton for punishment (which she is, too) because she still misses the people that are outwardly disgusting human beings, but she decides though she can't really change the way people see or think about her, she can still do something. And with the help on the ultra-secret (and kind of scary, in a dangerous way, in a Cult way) website Life By Committee. She does things she never thought she could do, and for a while things did work, but the outcome isn't worked out, the outcome doesn't always come out the way you want it.

The bad news? There's a lot of bad.

Well, maybe not bad but wanting-to-punch-something-what-the-fuck-is-going-on-with-these-people-it's-unhealthy kind of vibes.

As I said, the people in this town are weird. They are way into each other's lives and it is not normal. At all. Basically the whole town is commenting and bitching and are just being "concerned" plain mean to Tabby because she's apparently "changed." Her best friend ditched her because apparently she got hot all of a sudden and her brother started liking her, and all of a sudden Tabby's a sex kitten. Then there's the fact that they are bitching about her short shirts and the fact that she has a bigger bra size than them and it's all being said in "concern". Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me? Who tells people what to or not wear apart from your parents?

Which brings me to the Life by Committee parents. If you can call them that. Some people just shouldn't have children. Tabby's parents are those people. They don't even treat her like their child. Her father's a stoner, her mother's pregnant again and wants her father to clean himself up because she wants to "do this one right" Just lovely. I mean, hey, we messed this kid up so bad so let's have a do over, yay! I've never wanted to hit fictional parents in a book out of every single one I've read. And that's a long list.

There's also a few off handed comments about serious issues. Especially bulimia and anorexia, and that is not okay. In any context.  

“I make myself throw up in the bathroom just to see if it will clear the feelings out of my chest. It doesn’t. I’m so not cut out for bulimia.”

No. Just. No.

Life By Committee while addictive, has the worst bitchiest characters I've ever had the displeasure of reading with a warped sense of how reality works.

Assignment: Lie.

Secret: It's kind of okay once you get pass the just-kill-me-already part.

Rating: 2/5