The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life by Tara Altebrando

I found a list somewhere of books that take place in one day and thought that was intriguing. I remembered liking Jennifer E. Smith’s The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight (actually I like all her books) so thought I’d follow the list a little and see what happens. The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life by Tara Altebrando was the first book I read from the list.

Oyster Point’s high school’s senior class has a tradition, unsanctioned by the school. A week before school ends, there is The Hunt. It’s a scavenger hunt organized by the winner’s of the previous year’s Hunt. Mary, a good student, never any trouble, has decided that she’s going to enter, despite the fact that, if her mother found out, she’d be grounded for eternity.

Her team, made up of students on the fringe, included Mary’s long time friends, Winter who is her best girlfriend, Patrick her best boy friend and Dez, who everyone assumes is gay but nobody talks about it. There are two rounds: in order to qualify for Round 2, you need at least 1250 points in Round 1.

With Patrick driving them around town in his LeSabre, the quartet individually and together tackle some issues, the least of which is they will all be going off in different directions at the end of the summer.

Mary is angry because she didn’t get into Georgetown and Barbone, a ‘dumb jock’ did. He ‘stole’ her spot. In addition, Mary and Patrick her friend-date for the prom had an awkward situation there. Mary is crushing on Carson, who has a girlfriend, Jill, but rumor has it that it won’t be for long and she thinks he may like her. Hey, they spent a lot of time together on prom committee. Barbone and Dez have a, not altogether friendly, history.

The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life started off a little slow but picked up in the middle and by the end I couldn’t wait to see what happened. The mechanics of the story were good-text messages of the Yeti (the trophy for the winner) advising them of various new items for the hunt, giving clues, etc. made the story that much more exciting. The emotions of the characters were real enough and anyone who remembers their high school years can relate to the need to remember those years as good ones.

While I liked the Smith book a lot better (she’s a more exciting writer), The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life was a pleasant, enjoyable read.