Pwned by Shannen Crane Camp

Reagan West has a perfect life. She’s at the top of the high school food chain as co-captain of the cheerleading squad and she’s best friends with the most evil girl in Albany, Tawny Perez, which means she’s never on the receiving end of her wrath. The only trouble in Reagan’s perfect life comes from the constant threat of her dirty little secret leaking to her fellow classmates and casting her into a lifetime of ridicule.

Reagan West is a closet gamer and hates her role as the evil cheerleader.

But, as any well versed teenager knows, it’s better to suppress your own nerdy tendencies than to submit to a lifetime of being shoved into lockers, so Reagan bravely soldiers through life as a reluctant bully… until a boy from her guild moves to her school and becomes Tawny’s next target. The newcomer threatens to reveal Reagan’s nerdy little secret and force her to come to terms with who she truly is. Now Reagan has to decide if she’s going to defend her fellow geeks, or if she’ll continue to be a total troll.

Misty's Review:

Pwned. I still don't know what that means, but this was a delightful read with messages about bullying and standing up for yourself and others.

Raegan is a high school senior who hides her nerdy love of gaming behind her cool cheerleader persona. But when fellow guild member, Parker, moves to her town and the other cheerleaders decide to make him the target of their next prank, Raegan has some tough decisions to make. Should she go along with the crowd, or stop what is happening to her best online friend? The answer seems obvious, but knowing and doing are sometimes two different things. To complicate matters, Parker is kind of cute, well, really cute, and he sees something in the real life Raegan that makes her wonder why she's been hiding who she really is.

Raegan shows the amount of character growth I expect in a YA protagonist, and I really liked that she had parents who expected her to live up to a standard of responsibility (absent in many YA reads). I also found much to admire in Parker's character--his bravery a clear contrast to Raegan's cowardice.

I really liked that Pwned offers a cute, clean, relevant story for teens and adults who may face similar problems, when so many young adult books these days are going for sensationalism to get readers. Camp proves you don't need violence, sex, and gore to develop a good story. I recommend this to readers of all ages who enjoy a cute romance with a moral.

And P.S. This cover is adorable.

Here is a link if you want to check it out on Amazon.