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The Love of my Life <3

The Love of my Life <3

Friday, October 30, 2009

The Taker

We all know of that 3 letter word that strikes panic into our hearts, paralyzing our hands, and freezing our brains. What word is it . . . have you guessed. It begins with an "S" . . . still not sure? Well here it is . . .

S-A-Ts.

It's ok . . relax you don't have to take them . . . or if you do I feel s0 sorry for you. I think I got like a 200/2400 on the test. My HS class year was the 1st year that they started doing it out of 2400. Needless to say I'm SO not a test taker like our main heroine Carly Biels.

She is a student teachers love to have - A's and B's are the grades she receives, she always does her work - and always participates in class. You get the idea, she's a good student. Her Achille's heel would be the S.A.T. or any test that has you color in those totally tiny and annoying dots. I hates those - I always worry that I don't erase enough. When she sees those blue or green dotted sheets her mind goes into instant panic and freezes! The problem is now it's in hyper-drive because it's the S.A.T.s and on top of getting the perfect score she has, and I mean has to get into Princeton. You see her father went to Princeton, her grandfather and even her great-grandfather went and if she doesn't go well then she's a failure (or so she believes.)

When she takes the test she feels she's done decent, and she understands it won't be anywhere near perfect but as long as it's in the 20000s she doesn't mind. She waits for the clock to strike 8am before calling the College Board, and when she hears her score she's sure that there is a mistake . . . her score is 1710!

She gets a text of her cell phone that says "I can help you. - The Taker." The rumor around school is there is a person that will take the SAT for you and get you within 100 points of the perfect score. Carly ignores the text - she's no cheater. The next day she talks to her parents who say that they are all going to talk to Mr. Fellner who is the head honcho of college guidance office. When her parents and her are talking to Mr. Fellner, he puts it bluntly; her scores suck and she has no hope of getting into Princeton. However, Mr. Biels won't take that as an answer and says that there must be something that can be done - and the only solution is for Carly to take Mr. Lettich's SAT prep class which costs $$ and is hard to get into. For now though Carly must study with a tutor and try to get her scores up so that she can get into Mr. Lettich's class. Later that week she gets another message from the taker - last chance, does she want his/her help? The final rule (out of 8!) is that once agreed to there is no turing back. She replies back to him saying that yes, she'll use his help.

The rules of The Tester are clear: keep studying and take the test. When Carly continues to study for the SAT she starts to believe in herself and realizes that hiring The Tester was such a bad mistake! As the test draws near she has to decide to cancel it off with The Taker or cheat using his/her help after all.

This was such a nice break. I'm currently reading a book and I'm just having a hard time getting through it, so when I picked up this book I knew instantly that it was going to be such an adventure :) In the story there are other problems going on in her life: social, family pressure, romance, peer pressure the normal high school "issues". I know that if I were offered to cheat, I certainly would not. I wouldn't be able to live with knowing that my scores were in-fact not my own so that any school I got into wouldn't be my own hard work.

Another issue I had was with Carly herself. Her boyfriend was a totally jerk - but she still stayed with him!!! She constantly let him walk all over her as she continued to make excuses!! AND EVEN WHEN SHE CAUGHT HIM KISSING ANOTHER GIRL SHE STILL QUESTIONED WHETHER OR NOT TO STAY WITH HIM!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! LIKE FOR REAL!

I loved this book! It was just such a fun read, I kept laughing at the right times and cringing when the moment called. It is a wonderful book - and if you are getting ready for the SATs quickly read this book as a nice relaxer :) It will have you felling like the SAT is just 3 letter word and that's all.

Other books by J.M. Steele

The Taker by J.M. Steele. New York. (c) 2006

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