DNF Review: Get Even (Oh-so-fucking-believable)

Get Even
Author: Gretchen McNeil
Publication Date: September 16th 2014        
Publisher: Balzer & Bray
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars in Gretchen McNeil’s witty and suspenseful novel about four disparate girls who join forces to take revenge on high school bullies and create dangerous enemies for themselves in the process.

Bree, Olivia, Kitty, and Margot have nothing in common—at least that’s what they’d like the students and administrators of their elite private school to think. The girls have different goals, different friends, and different lives, but they share one very big secret: They’re all members of Don’t Get Mad, a secret society that anonymously takes revenge on the school’s bullies, mean girls, and tyrannical teachers.

When their latest target ends up dead with a blood-soaked “DGM” card in his hands, the girls realize that they’re not as anonymous as they thought—and that someone now wants revenge on them. Soon the clues are piling up, the police are closing in . . . and everyone has something to lose

Here's some advice while reading Get Even. Get Lost.

Okay, that's mean. The DGM team might try and pay me back by finding some humiliating video of me (there's none of the sort, unless I was drunk. Moving on...) So here's a nicer way of saying it.

When your brain tells you to stop.

STOP.

Apparently, September books were there to disappoint. The two I was most looking forward to, Get Even because I needed a good revenge book (not one) and The Dolls because I needed a good Voodoo book (also, not one), and I thought that was bad, though it was bad in a good way bad, as in it was entertaining because it was so ridiculous it became funny. Now, Get Even however...nope. It's just kind of cringe worthy and so not plausible. The first 10% I had like 20 highlights and 10 notes. 20 + 10 = a lot of sarcasm. It's also the most I have to say about a DNF in the first 10%.

Firstly, there's a girl named Peanut. Now, I'm no name discriminator, I don't usually comment on people or characters names, okay, not much (and I mean, Word constantly tells me I spell my name wrong. I don't, Word. I don't), I even like weird names (and it's standard in dystopians and fantasy- but Get Even is none of which), but a girl named Peanut in a contemporary. A girl named Peanut. I just. I can't.  And she isn't even a perspective we read from, which is a shame because I might actually remember who she is instead of the other four perspectives that I couldn't give a crap about.

Too many perspectives that aren't that long and suddenly just switch. I just got nothing from them and okay, I only read up to 13%, but I honestly couldn't even tell them apart. There was no distinctive voices.

Now, this is what really annoyed the hell out of me, because I mean, it's so fricking far-fetched. So, the DGM (Don't Get Mad- no really. Just get mad, because that is just so pathetic precious) is a known "organisation" - I use that term very loosely, since it's a bunch of people going around paying people back- in the school. It's becoming a problem, because you know, people don't like their karma handed back to them, so the principle get's the police involved. Okay, I can swallow that- though up until that point you know nothing of them actually causing anyone physical harm but the DGM themselves. Now, what I find farfetched is that the police come to the school trying to stop these teenagers from useless little things, because you know, there's no murderers, serial killers, rapists, or plain old thieves out there doing what they do that's worth paying attention to. And, get this, they open a hotline solely for information and tips and any information anyone has on the DGM.

Are you fucking kidding me?

We have a lot of hotlines for a lot of different things, but a hotline just for anonymous tips and information on DGM. We're not talking about a Drug Cartel here, we're talking about a bunch of teenagers having meetings to plan to humiliate people who humiliate others, which, is pretty ironic in itself, but a hotline.

Anybody else find that unrealistic?