Friend Me: Appreciation

     Friend Me, by Cathy Hopkins, is about three best friends and the troubles they have at age fourteen.  I definitely enjoyed reading it.  The three girls are named Lucy, Izzie, and Nesta, and they live in London.  Most of the troubles they go through are stereotypical teenage girl problems; boys troubles, and other mean girls.  I do really support how they are always there for each other throughout the book. 

     Friend Me consists of books 1-3 in a series.  Each book is narrated by a different girl; first Lucy, then Izzie, and finally Nesta.  Their perspectives are each quite different.  I think the author had each of them narrate the book that most involves their own life.  You get to know each character much more thoroughly over the course of the book they narrate.  For example, Nesta narrates book three.  In this book she also meets her boyfriend, her family starts having some financial problems, and she must face the mean, snobby Cressida. In other books you only get a glimpse of some of Nesta's smaller problems.   It might just be that during the book each girl narrates, you see more of their life.  But I think that the author deliberately has each girl narrate the book where their own life changes most. The author leaves out the other points of view because the point of view of the girl that narrates each book might be more interesting at that book, and possibly because then the other girls points of view would give things away.  Throughout the book, the girls have self realizations.  These points in the book would be less meaningful if you already knew that they were going to occur.   

     I do not think that there are any seriously unjust things in this book.  But when their is a problem, even if I wouldn't necessarily categorize it as unjust, it is solved in the fair way.  This goes for when either a disliked character, or a main character that you are supposed to like does something wrong.  For example, Izzie meets this boy Mark in the second book.  He keeps saying that he will call her, then he does not call.  When ever they see each other he promises to call, and never does.  One time he says that his phone was stolen.  Izzie later sees him texting on the same phone.  This whole time, his ignoring her is negatively affecting her emotions.  Justice is served during a dance that takes place before they go on winter break.  Once again Mark never calls, discouraging Izzie from wanting to go to the dance.  Eventually, her friends convince her to go.  When she sees Mark, he acts like nothing was ever wrong.   She rightfully gets mad, and ignores him, going off to dance with someone else.  Mark ends up being the disappointed one.  When problems arise, justice is served, and the character normally has a realization about herself.  

     While other themes come and go, friendship is the strongest theme throughout all three books.  Lucy Nesta and Izzie are always true to each other, and solve their problems.  It is only with the help of each other that they solve their problems, and realize important things in their lives.  They also know this and and really value their friendship with each other.  They do fight, but miss each other immensely while in arguments, and realize afterwords that their friendship is more important than anything they would have been fighting about. 

     Overall, I liked the book and will continue to read the series.  The friendship of the three main characters is the most important thing in all three books and I predict that that will continue in the later books of the series.