By Jennifer Miller (374 pages)
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Bookish rating: 4
A budding, precocious, and weird adolescent journalist--Iris--moves to a new posh school and tackles a long-standing mystery there. A secret society enacts vigilante justice, exposing scandal on teachers and students. Iris, fancying herself as a ballsy journalist, sees it as her duty to figure out what the heck is going on.
The voice of Iris is fresh, unique, and hilarious. We readers get to wryly sit back and watch the workings of her mind---intelligence beyond her years, matched with the emotions of an adolescent. Her narration is charming and disarming. And funny as hell.
The intricacies of the plot are secondary to the overall writing. I loved Miller's youthful, light-hearted, and non-labored style. She has a great tone that slides under the more self-conscious snark of older writers who achieve the same level of snark, but with far less charm.
Recommended.
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