Anatomy of a Misfit

This is the first young adult novel from best selling author Andrea Portes, whose two previous novels dealt with the dark side of humanity. While this is a high school tale, "Anatomy of a Misfit" also looks on the dark side, and examines the hateful underbelly of image and social status within high school.

Told in the first person by strangely popular, Anika Dragomir, you are quickly immersed in her stream of consciousness narrative that reveals a teenager caught between an all encompassing determination to remain among the top three most popular girls at her high school, and her inner self that mocks her popular standing as a type of mistaken identity. Her inner voice tells her she's a misfit, and exposure and humiliation is just one misstep away.

Anika's caustic, verbal musings are often amusing & witty, yet may quickly become wearing for many. This isn't necessarily a main character that you care about in the traditional sense of getting behind them, or rooting for them. Much of the story deals with the mentally abusive social status tormentor, Becky (number one most popular girl & Anika's friend) and how she wields her power. Then there is Logan, who does the unforgivable and tries to change his image over summer from nerd to silent cool dude. Anika, finds herself caught between two social worlds, and the journey to navigate between them overwhelms her. Along the way you have the requisite broken families, divorce, abuse, sibling jealousy, best friend drama, cliques, and forbidden love.

This is a story of teen angst at it's most caustic snarky self, where bad things do happen, and lessons are learned the hard way.