Review: He Said She Said by Kwame Alexander

Title: He Said She Said
Author: Kwame Alexander
Year Published: 2014

Genre: YA fiction

Pages: 330

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Location (my 2014 Google Reading map): USA (South Carolina)

FTC Disclosure: I borrowed this book from my school's library

Summary (from the inside flap of the book): You've heard that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, right? Well, forget that planetary ish--Omar and Claudia are from different solar systems. Meet Brooklyn transplant Omar "T-Diddy" Smalls: West Charleston high's football god and full-blown playa. He's got a ton of Twitter followers followers, is U Miami bound, and cannot wait to hit South Beach...and hit on every shorty in a bikini

Then there's Claudia Clarke: Harvard bound, straight-A student, school newspaper editor, and all-around goody-two-shoes. She cares more about the staggering teen pregnancy rate than about hooking up with so-called fly homies and posting her biz on Facebook. Omar and Claudia are thrown together when they unexpectedly lead (with a little help from Facebook and Twitter) the biggest social protest this side of the Mississippi. When a little flirting turns to real love, the revolt is on, and the scene at West Charleston gets real. Fast!

Review: I enjoyed this book; it was fun. I like books that alternate chapters so that the reader gets the story from different characters' perspectives. Omar and Claudia were good narrators for this purpose.

I'll confess that Omar's dialect took a few pages to get used to it, but once I did I liked that the author wrote it this way so that I felt like I could really "hear" how Omar and his friends talked. And, it definitely pointed out the contrast between Omar's chapters and Claudia's chapters.

I also liked that the author incorporated social media, which makes the book feel very now. It is funny that he used Facebook with high school students though because I think Facebook is becoming more of a thing for twenty-somethings and older. But, as a Facebook user and techie, I liked it.

I do have one issue: why is it always the good girl who falls for the bad boy? Yes, the bad boy changes a bit, but it always seems to be the good girl who dates the guy she knows she shouldn't. I did like that Omar cooks well, that was a nice twist.