Book Review: Getting Caught by Mandy Hubbard and Cyn Balog

Love this Cover!

At First Sight: Once upon a time, Jess Hill and Peyton Brentwood were the best of friends. But everything changed when they entered high school and now the only thing that links them, aside from their shared past, is the prank war that has been raging between them for almost four years. 

There are few rules to the war, the most important being that it only ends when one of them gets caught, and as senior year enters the homestretch, Peyton and Jess are racing to out-prank each other before its too late. 

On the side, Peyton is on a single-minded race to get into Harvard - which has been her dream since she was in the third-grade - and get out of her house where she's the overachieving black-sheep of the family. 

And Jess is just trying to get to the end of high school, without a fixed plan in mind and doing little else other than work at a Pet Store and try to out-prank Peyton. Until her forever crush, Dave, starts showing some interest in her. 

Second Glance: Getting Caught is an ebook-only book by Mandy Hubbard and Cyn Balog - which I got all the way back in September of last year*, and I feel bad it took me this long to read, not only because of the time but because I actually ended up loving this story. 

When the story opens it's just after winter break of senior year, and Jess and Peyton are as different as two girls can be. Jess is a loner and a rebel and has an "I don't care attitude" and Peyton is a bit of a neurotic mess, an all around 'perfect' student and it's hard to imagine these two were ever friends but, as the story progresses, you see how much of their past they shared. 

And I thought it was very realistic how their friendship deteriorated so fast, how one misunderstanding lead to another and then it just took off. I think the book is very honest about that because when you are 14 and so vulnerable everything feels so big and it's easy to get carried away, and that's in part what happens to Jess and Peyton until they reach a point where their war is kind of the only thing that makes sense to them. 

The pranks were evil but creative, so I'm giving the authors props for that. These two girls really knew how to hurt each other. And I also appreciated that, while both of them were angry at each other, they sounded so different and approached their anger in different ways.

Getting Caught is a short book (about 200 pages) that packs a punch. It covers so much time for it's length and I really felt like I got to know both Peyton and Jess. And I really liked both of them - though I do have a favorite. 

Bottom Line: I found Getting Caught to be a fun, addictive type of read. I read it all in one afternoon because I just wanted to know what had happened between Peyton and Jess and how everything was going to end. And I loved how it ended. I thought it was a lovely read. 

1/2

*Thanks to Mandy Hubbard for the chance of reading this story :)