This book surprised me on many levels. I wasn't completely sold at first. It came off a lot like one of those books. You know what I'm talking about. The unpopular, ugly girl in high school gets tortured and picked on by her asshole classmates until she makes a magical transformation nearly over night (in this case, over the summer) and she's beautiful and skinny and suddenly, she's widely accepted even by those who got their kicks in humiliating her on a daily basis. 
 That's in the book, but surprisingly, there's a whole lot more to it. I was ready to chuck this into the 'did not finish' pile when the main character gets approached by a complete stranger about how they can change their lives for the better and instead of getting the STRANGER DANGER!! alarms, she goes off with him instead because hey, she has nothing to lose! I'm sorry, but even when I was sixteen, I never would have fallen for that sort of mumbo jumbo. Granted, the main character had been on the verge of hurtling herself off of a bridge and I suppose his offer to change her life would have sounded tempting, but she only gets a tinge of doubt before she sort of just shrugs and tags along with him to wherever he was taking her. 
 Anyway, the book was good - after I got over my initial thoughts of, what the hell is this girl doing following a complete stranger to some unknown random-ass place? - I got settled into the pages and found my nose practically buried in the spine, trying to read what happened next. I have this deplorable tendency to reveal much more than I should, especially for those who've never actually touched the book, so I'm going to try and refrain from actually doing that now. Like I said, the book is good. It's not just your average 'ugly girl turns into princess over night' spiel. There's reasons behind it, consequences and shitty situations that occur as a result of her decision to change her looks to be more accepted. 
 I might have rated the book a solid five stars had it not been for the random bursts of well-known urban legends mingling throughout the book. At some point, Bloody Mary makes an appearance. However, it happens just one time and nothing ever comes of that. Which I thought was weird. What the hell happened to that part of the story?! Then there's random spirits and scary ghost kids popping up, clowns with teeth, death hounds, heads being chopped. I -- what? None of these instances were ever truly explained and considering it's the first book, I'm hoping that everything else gets their explanations in the other books. But other than that, it was a riveting read. I started to really feel bad for the main character and even knowing it was just the first book, I kept hoping that she'd find her happy place already because damn, that was a shit load of crap just thrown onto her. Poor thing didn't do anything wrong. 
 And when they reveal as to the reason why she even asked for that transformation in the first place, when the book reveals why she wanted to get her revenge, I understood. Completely. What those kids did to her was beyond messed up and even I blurted out a, "What the hell?!" when I discovered the truth. The suspense in this book was crazy though, you never know what's going to happen next. So -- off to get the second book, I go!