Fat Hoochie Prom Queen (by Nico Medina)

During a drunken high school party, Margarita accepts her rival's challenge to run for prom queen. Margarita gets so obsessed with beating Bridget -- a pretty but mean overachiever who also acts on TV -- that she starts to forget all the stuff she likes about her life and her large-and-loud self. But she comes to her senses when she finds out that her former friend is struggling with much more than winning the crown.

Margarita Diaz is different than most prom candidates: She is unapologetically fat, wears outrageous clothes, sometimes with feathers attached -- and can swear like a sailor in both Spanish and English. Also, unlike a lot of queen bee prom wannabes, she is actually nice to everyone. Her energy certainly breathes life into this rather meandering revenge story. Readers may laugh at some of the antics -- like when Madge wakes up to find that she has passed out drunk in a college football stadium next to an empty box of Krispy Kremes -- and they will certainly cheer when she tells off her arch-rival Bridget Benson.

But by the time readers make it towards the end of the book, they may have forgotten what the whole point was. And this is exactly when the author decides to build Bridget's unfortunate -- and rather outrageous -- secret past (which includes a trashy drug-addicted mother who hits on Madge's gay best friend). All this -- of course -- leads to a very-scripted resolution between Madge and Bridget. Ultimately, it's Madge and her ebullient narration that keeps this story afloat. It is a fun enough addition to the prom genre for mature teens, if not a particularly deep one.

Author: Nico Medina
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication date: May 6, 2008
Number of pages: 304
Paperback price: $8.99
Read Aloud: 14
Read Alone: 14