WinterHaven Books: Blog Tour & Giveaway: The Dirt by Lori Culwell

Today WinterHaven Books has the wonderful opportunity to review The Dirt by Lori Culwell. Special thanks to AToMR for hosting this blog tour as well as allowing us to participate!

Be sure to check out the other bloggers on the tour and giveaway for this book below.

The Dirt by Lori Culwell

Publication Date: November 22, 2012

Publisher: Booktrope Editions
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Lucy Whitley cannot wait to get out of Palm Desert. It’s not a place for a frizzy-haired science nerd, particularly when her fashion-obsessed older sister Sloane is the head of a clique of pretty girls who rule the school—and practically the whole town.Fortunately, life is about to change forever. Lucy’s dad is getting re-married, and then she can transfer to a boarding school in Connecticut, escaping all the mean girls and the endless whispers about the Whitley family scandal. Everything is going to be perfect—as long as the wedding goes smoothly.

My Thoughts
The Dirt by Lori Culwell was both a quick and light read that I was able to finish in one sitting. It’s filled to the brim with entertaining family drama and sibling rivalry that has you screaming foul play right from the beginning. Readers looking to entertain themselves with a mean-girl-esque type story will find that The Dirt more than fits the bill.

Lucy Whitely has never really found her place in the small town, desert community her wealth family resides in. Where her older sister Sloane is at the top echelon of the elite popular crowd and heads a secret girls society, Lucy is a misfit, honor roll, science dork. In this story, she’s just trying to make it through her father’s wedding with minimal drama before she heads off to a boarding school to re-invent herself. The story kicks into gear when the wedding is crashed by their missing sister of nine years. Scandal breaks out for this rich, media prone family and the wedding is cancelled. As the drama unfolds, their father decides to keep the girls away from the media frenzy until things calms down. During this down time Lucy and her now three sisters try to get to know one another, but hidden agendas, life-long secrets and sister rivalry make it difficult for them to find a connection.

I really feel the author Lori Culwell had a promising premise here, but slightly fell short in delivering the full potential of this story. I wish she would have headed down a different path than the one she chose. Having grown up with two sisters myself, I can never imagine being so mean and vindictive to them, so it was hard for me to connect with any of the cast. I did like Lucy to a certain degree, especially when she finally laid her assumptions to rest and tried to discover the truth about Megan and Sloane. However, she proved to be flighty and not so smart despite what her grades tell you about her. I was starting to like Sloane there for a minute, but to uncover what she was capable of doing to her sisters I just ended up cringing at her actions. OUCH! Frankie’s sporadic appearances, left me wanting to learn more about this sister. And finally, the mother, grandmother as well as would-have-been stepmother all seemed to play filler roles that never really got off the ground.

There was a lot of little events that felt random and shoved into the storyline. But despite the disorganization, I found myself following the story and going along with the flow including its sharp twists and turns. I enjoyed the sporadic emails that were randomly placed in the novel, and I wish the author would have included more of those communication pieces.

Overall, I finished this novel quite quickly because it kept my attention for some reason… possibly the constant drama. And, despite not being able to connect with this unique group of sisters, I found myself entertained by their actions and the lengths they would go to in order to achieve what they wanted.

3 Snowflakes