The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life by Tara Altebrando
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I'm pretty sure that every high school party I went to at my friend's house had one constant in the background: Can't Hardly Wait. While many people's "teen movies" are some John Hughes thing, it will always be Can't Hardly Wait as the constant memory, and always be the thing I think of when I consider the actors and actresses who were in it and still act today. The plot was just ridiculous enough to be absurd, but not so unrealistic as to think it couldn't happen in your world as well.
The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life is the perfect teen movie encapsulated into a 200-odd page book. It doesn't try to be anything it isn't, any "deep" moments are put aside in favor of a short block of time involving a high school's yearly scavenger hunt. And it's marvelous. The book wastes no time getting started, shares the absurdity of a scavenger hunt, toys with a little drama, goes for some fun and cheap laughs along the way, and ties up the loose ends in a completely viable, satisfying ending.
There's so little that needs to be said overall. It's the best kind of candy, it's exactly the shot of whimsical fun I was looking for, and this should get a lot more attention than I feel it has up to this point. If you like young adult books, it's worth a few hours of your time,for sure.
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