High school, Hell school… it makes no difference to Ally Ryan since she moved back to Orchard Hill High.
She’s So Dead to Us
by Kieran Scott
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
April 2011
In
She’s So Dead to Us by Kieran Scott, Ally left Orchard Hill with the thought that she would never return, but of course she did. Now that she is back, she is no longer maintains the status of a rich popular “Crestie”. In fact, Ally finds herself living quite the normal life, in a small condo with her mother on the other side of town with all the other “Norms”. Ally’s family moved out of the small town after her dad invested money in the wrong thing and lost everything that his family had. He also caused several other “Crestie” neighbors to loose, A LOT, of money as well. So much money, in fact, that Ally’s old friends have deemed it impossible to ever forgive her. Forgiveness seems to be hard to come by in this small town, because Ally is finding it equally hard to forgive her father for walking out of her life shortly after he moved them away from Orchard Hill. It’s been months and no one has heard from him. Each day, Ally is plagued by the fact that her dad could be dead, or worse living without his family.
Like in all high school based books, there is a boy…The boy that everyone is in love with, the soccer star, the perfect gentleman. Only this boy happens to be living in Ally’s old house. Jake Graydon meets Ally just a couple hours after she arrives back in Orchard Hill because she could not resist the urge to take a look at her old house. After the brief encounter, Jake realizes from his friends, that Ally is completely off limit’s because of what her father did to everyone and their families.
Throughout the book, Ally tries to be accepted by her old friends, but she finds herself being shot down time after time. After humiliation, she tries to accept her life as a “Norm” and even goes as far to get a “Norm” boyfriend and a best friend. All the while, she finds that she is obsessing, or developing a “Jakesession” as she calls it. She cannot get her mind off of him, and he seems to be just as infatuated with her, despite what all his friends may say.
Her old friends hate her. Her dad is missing. She loves a boy. Her mom has a new boyfriend. Humiliation keeps coming back for more. Could Ally’s life be any more complex for a teenager? The answer is yes, yes it can. This happens at the very end of the book, when her dad randomly shows up.
I honestly turned the page, expecting another chapter, and there was nothing. I guess I was not under the impression that the book was part of a trilogy at the beginning. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed. I can say that Scott’s writing style paired with the cliffhanger ending, has made me want to read the rest of the series.
