Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig

Release Date: March 13, 2012

Willa's secret plan seems all too simple.

Take from the rich kids at Valley Prep and give to the poor ones.

Yet Willa's turn as Robin Hood at her new high school is anything but. Bilking her "friends"—known to everyone as the Glitterati—without them suspecting a thing is far from easy. Learning how to break into lockers and Beemers is as hard as she'd thought it would be. Delivering care packages to the scholarship girls, who are bullied just for being different, is more fun than she'd expected.

The complication Willa didn't expect, though, is Aidan Murphy, VP's most notorious ace-degenerate. His mere existence is distracting Willa from what matters most to her—evening the social playing field between the haves and have-nots. There's no time for flirting, especially with conceited trust-funders like Aidan. But when the cops start investigating the string of thefts at Valley Prep and the Glitterati begin to seek revenge, could Aidan wind up being the person that Willa trusts most? 

Have you ever seen the BBC series Robin Hood? The ones with Jonas Armstrong? As far as Robin Hood goes, he was pretty much the best. And the hottest. I'd let him rob me any day. Okay, that was a little dirty, but you get my point right? I loved that version of Robin Hood. In the literary world, I loved Janette Rallison's take on Robin Hood (or Robbin' Hoodlum, as it turned out) in My Unfair Godmother. I think it would be safe to say that I am a fan of most things "Robin Hood". 

Notice I said *most*.

I really wanted to like this book.

I tried!

Honestly!

I think the biggest problem for me was this:

It just wasn't believable. A fifteen year old girl turns into a master thief in a matter of weeks, going from pick-pocketing to robbing mansions like it's nothing.  I thought the idea of Willa stealing thousands of dollars worth of stuff, to buy one dress here or a shirt there for lower-income teenage girls was a bit ridiculous. I kept thinking, Wouldn't just giving her the thousand dollars, since her dad is out of work, be more helpful than giving her a REALLY expensive shirt?? Or in another instance, Instead of stealing all that crap to pawn and then giving that cash to a girl to help her pay for a tutor so she doesn't lose her scholarship, why don't YOU, Miss 3.8 GPA, tutor her yourself?? Like I said, it just didn't do it for me. 

I think the other major issue I had was the ending of the book. I haven't come across such a random ending since I read Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. For those of you that read it, you might know what I'm talking about--how there was a lot of build-up to a rather lacking finale. In this book, Pretty Crooked, I felt like the story was actually a really great idea that was very poorly executed, and by the end of the book, it seemed like even the author was tired of the story, since it just simply....stopped. Ended. There were so many loose ends and things left unexplained-it was just sad. 

I wouldn't recommend this, but it's not because of anything inappropriate or vulgar. It's actually quite "clean". The reason I wouldn't recommend it is because, when I was reading it, I was bored. That's not to say you won't love it though. You have a couple of weeks to decide before it's released, but I suggest to get it from your local library instead of forking out twenty bucks for it.

Happy Reading!

**I received this egalley from the publisher for the purpose of review.