You Are *So* Cursed!

It's Monday! And what does that mean?

No, it does not mean that I need a caffeine IV. That's not exclusive to Monday. I need one of those every day.

Book: You Are So Cursed!
Author: Naomi Nash
Published: 2004

Vick's the school witch, and she makes sure everyone knows it. She's doing a good job--everyone but her tiny group of misfit friends is terrified of her. But she's got a big secret, and here it is: while she's got a real gift for magic, it's got more to do with Houdini than Hecate. When Gio, a popular and well-liked guy (in other words, Vick's perfect antithesis), realizes this and starts getting close, the first bricks in Vick's wall start to crumble. It gets worse when the friends that she's been protecting for so long suddenly seem to turn on her. In the end, Vick has no choice but to let someone in or be alone forever.

I picked this book up for the title--it made me laugh, especially with the cover photo of a sour-faced, sterotypical goth girl sneering out at you. I kept reading because it inverted and undid my expectations. Although some of the secondary characters suffer from 2D-itis, Vick leaps off the page in full and complex life. Vick's story is bitterly, caustically funny, heaping withering scorn on stratified high school society that never looks beyond the outside. Weaving in a real respect and affection for "street magic," the illusions and misdirection used by stage magicians, Nash tells the story of a tough girl who's a secret marshmallow, and how love and friendship are scarier than even black magic.