Purity by Jackson Pearce

Shelby made her mother three promises before she died: listen to her father, love as much as possible and to live without restraint.  Shelby has lived by the Promises for years, but now she's run in to trouble.  Her father wants her to help with and participate in the Princess Ball, a father-daughter dance that includes a vow to live a pure life - no drinking, no drugs, and no sex before marriage.  Shelby doesn't want to make the vow, but she can't go against Promise 1.  Shelby decides the only solution is to have sex before the ball, thereby negating the vow.  She's in a race against time to lose her virginity.

So this was...predictable.  Yes, that's how I would sum up this book.  Super predicable.  By the time I was on page 20 it was plenty clear exactly where this book was going and what was going to have happened by the end.

Shelby has two close friends, Ruby, her fun-loving adventurous crazy friend and Jonas, her organized, serious, male friend.  Together they help Shelby live life to the fullest by jumping of bridges and so forth.  Shelby has practically no relationship with her father.  They are awkward and uncomfortable together, and never have any kind of conversation.

Spoilers.

As soon as this information was presented I had the book figured out.  Shelby was at some point going to realize she was in love with Jonas all along, and Jonas has been in love with her all along but already knew it.  Also, Shelby and her father were going to become closer as they are forced to work together on this crazy Princess Ball thing.

And that is exactly what happened.  Shelby works out THE WORST PLAN EVER of having sex with a random guy she doesn't care about to negate the Promise because IT IS THE ONLY WAY because having to actually talk to her dad about feelings is six million times worse than having sex with practically a stranger.  And yes, I know adolescents have swollen amygdales and therefore they often make reckless and stupid choices but damn, what a crazy-ass plan.  One that her friends, while not necessary approve of, support.

So Shelby proceeds to try to have sex with several people and it all ends badly.  Shelby has no game.  Also, she won't have sex with someone who won't use a condom, so she's not a total idiot.  That was nice.

THEN Shelby finds out Jonas had sex with someone once and she's totally upset and angry and hurt and trying to figure out why, oh why does she feel this way?  She figures it out...and then proceeds to finally have sex with a perfectly nice guy from Ruby's work.  That was the only surprising thing in this book.  I was totally surprised that Shelby actually went through with the having sex with someone she didn't really care about.  After she'd figured out she cared about Jonas.  It felt very strange.  So that was the one unpredictable moment in the book.  Don't worry, Jonas seems cool with Shelby having sex with someone else, even though he was upset about it before.

And yes, Shelby and her father are much closer now, and Shelby realizes she's been ignoring Promise 2 all along, and blindly following the others.

There were some genuinely funny moments and some witty dialogue.  I definitely think it will be a hit with teens.

Purity comes out April 24, 2012.