3.9999857-or-something-like-that stars 
 I don't know. Initially, I just felt like the "spark" I got out of this book was a bit lacking, but the more I think about it, the more I'm starting to realize that most of the characters except the protagonist were a bit underdeveloped and only the second half of the book would really deserve five stars. 
 There were a lot of pluses to this book and if you like contemporary, you should give it a go. The writing got off to a rocky start, but either I got used to it or it got better. I admit, it was a bit disappointing that this book was not, in fact, life changing for me in any way. Sometimes the subject matter seemed to be handled a bit too lightly, (view spoiler)[ such as when the time she gets locked in the closet with the guy who raped her at the party and all that and is sort of rescued by Nicole the jock queen and the entire lacrosse team... (hide spoiler)] 
 A lot of the school set-up was a bit cliche and made me think of the Princess Diaries, especially in the beginning. Her voice initially annoyed me and I personally couldn't sympathize with the girl who fails all her classes, hates school, and hates her teachers. Of course she finds refuge from all this angst-ness in art class where the art teacher is like some laid-back liberal activist type. There was that cliched frenemy, and that pervy hot guy who had no dimension at all. Heather was probably the worst developed character for me, she started out all nice and friendly, but when she comes back after ditching Melinda, Melinda starts acting like Casey Quinn from Someday Dancer and ditches her. (view spoiler)[ and then the end seemed way too rushed, her suddenly becoming like popular after she talks about what happened (hide spoiler)] 
 Overall, a flawed book but one with a good lesson I guess. The main character started out a little annoying, but I sympathized with her in the end, so yeah, almost 4 stars....