YA Review: The Diamonds by Ted Michael

Unless you read a lot of YA books, you might not really appreciate the fun, and at times surpisingly gripping, novel The Diamonds by Ted Michael. (For an interview with Ted Michael, click here.)

The Diamonds is a well-crafted novel providing the back story and then the aftermath of Marni Valentine's rise and fall as part of an elite clique of girls, called the Diamonds, at a private school on Long Island. She inadvertently breaks with her tyrannic social group by dating the leader's ex-boyfriend, Anderson. The Diamonds use a mock legal system to put their peers on trial and no one is immune. In the end, the social isolation is too much for Anderson who betrays Marni and her new group of outcast friends. Marni is liberated and transformed by her new role by the end of the book, but not first without feeling the full wrath of her ex-friends.

At the outset, I was reminded of the book Emma by Jane Austen. When Austen set out to write Emma, she said "I am going to make a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." Ted Michael tackles this same challenge, and although it may take a while for some readers to warm up to Marni, the author delivers with a character who grows increasingly sympathetic. Her fear of being an outsider and her doubts about her strengths, were all too-real for anyone who has had to pass through secondary school double-doors.  As the book progresses, readers will walk a mile in Marni's shoes, and we feel that her transformation, the unfolding of her own personality, is just in time.  For romance fiends, this isn't exactly a HEA ("happily ever after") book, but there is enough promise of Marni's future felicity to satisfy most YA readers.

Finally, I must make mention of the rich and clever dialogue in The Diamonds, which alone make this book worth reading. A sample of a very funny line:

"And then I was like, 'I'll have one percent, please.'" Priya opened her eyes so that her lashes touched her forehead. "I mean, do I look like drink whole milk?"