This book was a big surprise. Since I somehow got on a prom reading jag, I thought I was going to have to slap someone to finish this, but author Blake Nelson saved me. Though the novel starts out frothily enough, it deepens, and how!
The premise of Prom Anonymous is that three girls who have been friends since middle school are trying to go to the prom together for one last hurrah. They’ve really drifted apart through the years: Jace is an up-and-coming tennis star, Chloe is… weird, and Laura is cheerleader. A jock, a princess and a goth go into a bar… Yeah, sounds like the set-up for a joke, but it’s not. Laura is an organizer, and sets out to ‘organize’ her friends. She already has a boyfriend, so she’s set, but she doesn’t account for the fact that she and her boyfriend are growing apart. Jace finally asks out a fellow jock, the highest ranking tennis player in the school, *but he’s a bit more complicated than she thought. And Chloe’s poetic passion erupts in a burst of creativity about the anonymous Zach whom she’s supposed to remember forever, but once she meets him, is it really going to be all that magical? This novel is snarky and sarcastic and sly and actually very sweetly nostalgic about that End All Be All Celebration: Prom. Chloe’s poems are a hilarious and perfect touch, including the title poem:
prom anonymous
boy, date,
zach who
likes yellow,
zach who is
tall, will like me
or not (nothing to
be done)
we’ll take
pictures, dance, run through
the streets,
maybe one moment of
“yes, the stars are lovely,
and the trees are like kings”
and then:
okay,
thanks,
see ya,
goodnight
(they say
i’ll remember you forever)
*Jace is my newest vote for the Cool Girl list! She proves herself woman enough to really deal!
