My Invented Life by Lauren Bjorkman

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Pub. Date: Sept 29th 2009
Age Range: Young Adult
Pages: 240
Format: ARC
Source of copy: from the author

With Roz and Eva everything becomes a contest—who can snag the best role in the school play, have the cutest boyfriend, pull off the craziest prank. Still, they’re as close as sisters can be. Until Eva deletes Roz from her life like so much junk e-mail for no reason that Roz understands. Now Eva hangs out with the annoyingly petite cheerleaders, and Roz fantasizes about slipping bovine growth hormone into their Gatorade. Roz has a suspicion about Eva. In turn, Eva taunts Roz with a dare, which leads to an act of total insanity. Drama geeks clamor for attention, Shakespearean insults fly, and Roz steals the show in Lauren Bjorkman’s hilarious debut novel.



A GLBT novel with a delightful voice, a story of defining true identity and learning to regain someone's trust. Jocular but sincere, My Invented Life depicted beautiful sisterly love and friendship with an implication: be the one you really are.

Roz and Eva drifted apart for no reason - at least not what Roz could recall. Then the two sisters started to go against each other, starting with Roz's fantasies for Eva's boyfriend Bryan. Now Roz suspected that something was up with her sister and she made up a new life for herself on the hope of forcing Eva to come clean. The story was fun from beginning to end, mostly for the mix up of Roz's real life and her pure imagination. At first it was hard for me to tell what was true and what was not - hence the confusion stood between me and the joy My Invented Life could bring. Fortunately when I eventually caught the drift, it cracked me up all the time.

The story was full of characters who seemed to have problems with their sexualities. Some didn't know their real feelings, some had the wrong idea while the others were too afraid to face the prejudice. Roz has gotten herself involved in such a complicated world which did her bad but also helped her learn more about her friends, her sister and herself. I especially loved the part when everything was a bunch of mess and Roz had no clue of what was happening anymore. And the good thing was that no character was bad in the book, if there were, they all ended up redeeming afterward.

Roz? Extremely funny and unpredictable female lead. I couldn't believe that she did such a thing as lying about her sexuality. Her jealousy of Eva never disturbed me at all, I felt bad for her most of the time since it was as if each and everyone had something to hide from her. However, at times she acted so childish and silly I couldn't take her seriously. I also hoped to see more of her and Nico before the story ended though. He was such a sweet guy.

My Invented Life was a different story of a kind which made the somewhat heavy subject easier to digest and lighter to enjoy. I encourage you to give it a try.

Rating: 3/5