The Enemies:
R. Klausenhook, actress/evil stepmother
Shanti Shruti, yoga instructor/evil stepmother
Candy Lamb, pregnant housewife/waitress/evil stepmother
The Heroines:
Alice Bingley-Beckerman, student/wronged stepdaughter
Reena Paruchuri, student/wronged stepdaughter
Molly Miller, student/wronged stepdaughter/lexicography expert
The Goal:
1. Destroy what is dearest to the enemy.
2. Get away with it.
What could these three girls have in common? Alice Bingley-Beckerman is “…[T]he quiet girl in the funky clothes. Everyone likes me. Kind of.” Reena is one of the “it” girls… always has been, thinks she always will be. Molly Miller is a nerdy… nerd, who grew up in a tiny town where no one but her seems to appreciate learning.
How are they connected?
1. They all go to Putnam Mount McKinsey- a posh boarding school for “brats”.
2. They all have an evil stepmother.
When the three girls meet, they have no clue that they are all in the same boat of suckfest-ness. But when they each eventually learn about each other’s step mothers- R. (short for Rachel), Shanti (she’s not even Indian!), and Candy (who just wants a live in maid, after all)- they know they have a common goal.
Revenge.
Together they form The Poison Apples, an organization for those who have evil stepmothers… By those who have evil stepmothers… In the goal of using The Poison Apple… on their stepmothers.
Same marble white mansion, same green lawn, same puny dying palm tree next the driveway that Pradeep had always refused to let us chop down. (He had a tendency to get attached to random nonhuman objects and attribute them with human traits. “That tree is a good tree!” he would scream at us. “It knows right from wrong!”)
This was a pretty darn good book. It was hilarious, it was interesting, it was a fluff book… and yet, it had a meaning. Meanings are pretty hard to find in YA books as far as I can tell, and surprisingly, most meanings pop up in fluff books like these. Weird.
But anyway, this is a grand book, and a quick read. I’d give it five stars.