Being Sixteen

Being Sixteen by Allie Condie, author of Matched, is a young adult novel about life as a teenager and struggles that they have to go through. The main theme of the book is relationships (especially with family)
Juliet Kendall is having her sixteenth birthday party, which in the Mormon religion, is a very big deal. Not only does she get to start driving in a car that she has already received, or get a cell phone, she finally gets to start dating the boy of her dreams, Nate. Juliet seems to have the perfect life. A dream boyfriend, a great car, a spot starring on her basketball team, a great spirit, and a happy family. Or so she thinks. Juliet's 14 year old sister, Carly, has always been a happy, fun loving girl, but lately things are starting to change. Juliet starts finding things that worry her. She notices how Carly avoids eating with the family and is starting to look skinnier. Later, Juliet discovers hundreds of boxes of laxatives that Carly has kept hidden, and discovers that her little sister is bulimic. Juliet confronts her mother and together as a family, they try to work to cure Carly's illness. After this scary discovery, Juliet has to learn how to deal with change and hardtimes along with keeping her faith and helping her sister overcome an eating disorder.
Honestly, I read the back summary of the book and I didn't think much of it. I'm not a huge fan of the Matched series. However, as soon as I started reading, I fell in love with this book. It is probably one of the best books I have ever read. It had a great storyline and great characters. I personally find eating disorders and mental illnesses rather interesting and I am also Mormon so I can relate well to the religious things they talk about in this book. This book is very appropriate. There were no swear words or parts that were bad. The only bad thing about this book, is that after a while, the story kind of started to drag on. I mean, Carly's eating disorder was discovered before the halfway point of the book, so it took her more than half of a book to talk about her recovery. Also, if you are not Mormon or do not know the standards and beliefs of the religion, you would probably have a hard time understanding some parts of the book, as Juliet makes a lot of references to the religion and it's teachings.
All in all, I think this book deserved an A+. It was AMAZING. As soon as I started reading, I couldn't stop! The story and plot line was great and I loved the characters. I didn't xpect much out of this book and I was suprised by how good it was. I loved it!