‘All’s Fair in Love, War, and High School’ by Janette Rallison was another great read by this author. She shapes a world in which high school hierarchy is pretty clear, from popular cheerleader Samantha to studious Amy, and slacker Rick, all candidates for future senior class President.

Samantha has decided to run for office due mainly to the fact that former boyfriend and current co-worker, Logan, told her that leadership qualities are looked upon highly on college applications. Little does he know that she will take this to heart, having gotten only an 810 composite score on her SATs. Coupled with this fact is her concern that any college she’ll want to go to has no chance of taking her without a more solid high school resume.

When she tries to get Logan’s support in her campaign, she knows she’ll likely have to reduce herself to giving him something he wants in return. That something happens to be her having to go out on a date with a guy named Doug, whom she’d rather do anything else than date. Samantha’s date with Doug will only serve to further Logan’s agenda, as he can only go out with a girl named Veronica if Samantha and Doug go out. So, Logan and Samantha make a bet. It seems easy enough, but the fact that Samantha seems incapable of not insulting anyone for two weeks makes Logan’s end of the bet seem a pretty sure thing. If she can do it, he’ll campaign for her. If she can’t, she has to go out with Doug.

Even though the ending seemed somewhat predictable, I was still enthralled by the premise of the novel, and truly interested to see how it would all turn out, and how everything would happen on the path to getting to that end point. The characters were realistically drawn, and Samantha and Logan, the two main characters, played off of each other well, with just enough witticisms and sarcasm to make their playing off of each other interesting and a relationship worth rooting for.

You can find ‘All’s Fair in Love, War, and High School’ by Janette Rallison here.