The Best Friend

Riley zipped off, and Lishia stood there shaking her head. It was as if she had become Riley’s salve friend. Lishia would probably never get to have her own opinions, make her own choices…it was an awfully high price to pay for a “best” friend. But there seemed no way out.

Book: The Best Friend by Melody Carlson, Revell Publishers, 2012

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Target Audience: Girls 13-18

Subjects: Friendship, alcohol, lies

Summary: Just how far should a girl go to get a best friend? That’s the question Lishia has to ponder when all her youth group friends pretty much dump her for the new girl in town. Another girl at school is willing to be Lishia’s friend but that friendship comes with a price. Riley doesn’t want a friend, Riley wants someone she can control. There are perks to it though: Riley knows how to get Lishia on the cheerleading team. And that’s something else Lishia really wants. When Riley’s demands increase, not only does the cost of friendship increase, but the cost of leaving the friendship increases. Lishia must decide how far is too far to avoid loneliness.

Notes: This is the second in the Life At Kingston High Series, books that show life for girls in high school. Thus far the focus seems to be looking at how our actions affect others. In the first one, the main character from this one is portrayed as a bad guy and her friend switches loyalties to become the best friend of the main character from that book. Now the result is a girl lonely and desperate enough for a friend to do nearly anything to secure a friend. And the consequences are others getting hurt because of her choices. In this book the character faces issues of drinking alcohol, lying, going along with cheating, and trying to destroy someone else’s reputation in order to benefit yourself. To be on the cheerleading squad, Lishia antagonizes another girl until she gets mad, allows Riley to go into the computer and change information, and participates in an underage drinking party and keeps the presence of all but one cheerleader a secret so the one girl will get kicked off the team and Lishia put on. At the end Lishia turns to her youth group friends when she reaches bottom and they point her back towards Christ. As she reads her Bible she realizes what she needs to do and finds comfort in knowing that whether she has a “best” friend or not, she has a friend in Christ.

Recommendation Scale: 4/5

Reviewer: J:-)mi

John 15:15 – I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead I have called you friends for everything I learned from My Father I have made known to you.

 I received this book from Revell for free in exchange for my honest review