~Sandee*Stuck in Wonderland~

New Girl was one of those books that you'd either love it or hate it.
I am so torn between loving and hating it.
It was sort of an old-school crime movie that would keep you guessing who killed who.
If I could rename this book I would probably name it "Deception, Lies and more Lies".
Reading it also reminded me a bit of Pretty Little Liars.

New Girl would keep you thinking up until the last few chapters of the book.
You'd wonder what really happened to the missing girl and why people were so aloof towards new girl.
I actually made up a couple of possible endings for this book and none of them came close to the real ending of the story.
Turns out this book was a retelling of a classic novel Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier.
This book was definitely a page turner and that was one of the things I liked about New Girl.

The story was told between alternating POV's of the New Girl and the missing girl Becca Normandy.
The main character is actually the New Girl whose name was revealed almost near the end of the book.

LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO THE TWO NEW GIRLS:

New Girl 1: Becca Normandy
She came in a year before New Girl 2.
Everyone liked and loved her.
She was the picture of perfection.
She was fun and adventurous.
She had a boyfriend who loves her (at least that’s what she tells everyone).
But there was more to her than meets the eye.
She was not who everyone thinks she is.
As the story progress you'll see a different side of Becca that no one else knew except for her boyfriend Max.
Becca was the type of girl that has a lot of secrets and in the end those secrets came back at her.

New Girl 2: Her name was mentioned only once through the entire book which was actually near the end of the book.
She was from Florida.
Her parents has been trying to get her in to Manderly and on her senior year she finally got in that is after Becca went missing.
NG 2 had a hard time fitting in because everyone especially her roommate Dana thinks she's trying to become missing girl Becca.
She tried hard to let other people see that she was not doing that but everyone seem to be thinking differently especially when she and Max, Becca's boyfriend, started hanging out.

I liked the two main characters. Becca and NG 2 for me were well defined. I hated Becca which meant that her character was pretty convincing. She was a psychopath. She was seriously disturbed person. And for NG 2, I really felt her. It wasn’t easy being a new girl but being around the students of Manderly made it even worse. It is very hard to live in someone else's shadow but it is harder if everyone seem to think that you're competing with a person you don’t even know.

Anyways, Becca went missing right? So there were a lot of speculations as to what happened to her. I actually listed the three other important characters that might have contributed to Becca's disappearance.

POSSIBLE CULPRITS:

PRIME SUSPECT 1: MAX (the boyfriend)
Of course he would be the primary suspect on missing girl's disappearance. He was missing girl's boyfriend and new girl's love interest (what a coincidence huh?). He knew stuff about Becca that no one else knew. Becca has a hold on him. She controls him and at first thought he was the most likely to have killed or made Becca disappear. But he wasn’t the type of guy who would be capable of that on my own opinion. Since he's the boyfriend he definitely should be one of the prime suspects.

PRIME SUSPECT 2: JOHNNY (the other guy)
Becca has been a very naughty girl. She's not only been with Max but she's also been with Johnny. Tsk tsk. Anyways, Johnny was Max best friend until he hooked up with Becca that is. Most of the time I kept on thinking that it was him who should be blamed for Becca's disappearance. He didn’t have any motives though unlike Max but still I thought it was really him.

(PRIME SUSPECT 3: DANNA ( (the best friend)
Danna was the roommate, the best friend. She was the one Becca usually talks to. She was a loyal friend to Becca. While she has been a good friend to Becca she found out something that Becca did behind her back, hooking up with the one guy she wanted, Johnny.

When you read this book you'll find yourself looking out for these three characters too because you'd really think it was one of them. But I'll leave the rest up to you to read the book and find out on your own.

Though I liked the book I did have a couple of issues with it.

1. It was too unrealistic. I have not read Rebecca which I think is has the original concept of this book but I just didn’t see how people at a certain school could like one new girl like that so much. I usually for a new girl especially in a boarding school they already have their own cliques. They already have their own groups to even bother noticing a new girl or the most accurate term to use would be obsessing over a new girl.

2. I could understand if two guys fight over one girl but if two guys fight over one girl and then fight over another girl who happened to be the new girl is a different story. Again, it was highly unrealistic. Aren't there any pretty girls on that boarding school worth looking at?

3. Danna kept on accusing NG 2 of imitating Becca. I mean what the f***? They didn’t even know each other.

4. I know parents love their kids but if that kid wished for something when they were thirteen they should remember that as their child grows their wishes change too. This whole mess wouldn’t have happened if NG 2's parents didn’t assume she'd still want to be enrolled to Manderly.

There were some things I liked about this book too like the alternative POVs. I think it really made the readers get a glimpse of what happened before and after Becca's disappearance. I think it was a good approach for this kind of book. The characters were well played especially Becca. I hated her so much I want to punch her in the face. The pacing was good too. It was not too fast nor was it too slow.

See what my problem is with this book. It was a bit of good things and bad things that I couldn’t really tell if I loved it or hated it.

If you ask me if I'll recommend it, I will. It was actually a very interesting read.

3.5! :D