New Girl by Paige Harbison {26th]

Title: New Girl
Author: Paige Harbison
Pages: 304
Format: eBook/ eARC
Publish Date: January 31st, 2012 ; HarlequinTeen
Source: NetGalley
Synopsis:

They call me 'New Girl'...

Ever since I arrived at exclusive, prestigious Manderly Academy, that’s who I am. New girl. Unknown. But not unnoticed—because of her.

Becca Normandy—that’s the name on everyone’s lips. The girl whose picture I see everywhere. The girl I can’t compare to. I mean, her going missing is the only reason a spot opened up for me at the academy. And everyone stares at me like it’s my fault.

Except for Max Holloway—the boy whose name shouldn’t be spoken. At least, not by me. Everyone thinks of him as Becca’s boyfriend but she’s gone, and here I am, replacing her. I wish it were that easy. Sometimes, when I think of Max, I can imagine how Becca’s life was so much better than mine could ever be.

And maybe she’s still out there, waiting to take it back

I didn't figure this out until I read a review from someone else, but this is a retelling of another story. The other novel was called Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I had no idea! But, that didn't effect my feelings about this book. Paige Harbison is a wonderful author with a writing style that made me not want to tear away from the book.

New Girl is about a girl who gets transferred to Manderly Academy for her senior year. She had wanted to go there when she was younger, but kept getting rejected. So once she did, she couldn't burst her parents' bubble and say she didn't want to attend. By going to Manderly, it meant she would have to leave her home state, leave her friends and family, and start somewhere completely new. For a girl who was born and raised in Florida, going to New Hampshire must of been a huge change. At first, she believed everything would be okay. Nothing was okay once she arrived at the school. It just so happened that the only reason she got the spot at Manderly was because a girl had gone missing. She, Becca, was a star at the school. Miss Popularity. So, of course, her disappearance wasn't something that went away. Everybody believed she was still there, just waiting for the perfect time to pop out. That didn't make up for the fact that her roommate (Dana) was a major pain in the butt; always yelling and saying how Becca would be back soon.

I enjoyed the way Paige Harbison portrayed the characters.  Dana. Becca. Max. Johnny. The-Girl-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Until-The-Very-End. Yes, I mean that. I didn't notice that the main girl's name wasn't mentioned until the complete end when someone said it. I had a blank look on my face, because it took me that long to figure out I hadn't heard her name mentioned before. I really did like that touch Paige Harbison threw in. As well as the alternating point-of-views. The main girl's persepctive and then from Becca's. Becca's point-of-view was in the past, from when she was at Manderly and how she made a difference. But, Becca was just a little bit psycho, so that was interesting to read about.

All in all, this was a very good read. I didn't know what to expect. I thought it'd be a cheesy boarding school story, but it wasn't just about that. I recommend this story to anybody that enjoys retellings and mysteries(:

We could be as dead as anyone who'd lived to be a hundred or as someone who was given a lethal injection. Our lives could be over at any moment. We were not invincible. I think that was a new one. We all knew it of course, but we never really felt it. And as we were all getting ready to end out high school lives and begin our new ones, I realized that these were thoughts worth remembering.