So I was reorganizing my book shelf the other day (don’t judge) when I came across some books I hadn’t seen in a while. Judy Blume. Sarah Dessen. Beverly Clearly. The names that defined and redefined my pre-teen and adolescent days. The women that changed my life. The stories that shaped my perspective on everything I know about being a girl. Back in the day, I devoured these novels, soaking up every bit of new information I could get from them. I loved the characters, the stories, the life lessons, and everything in between. But mostly I just loved to read. And I loved to read these novels because I could relate to them so well. (Sounds a lot like my current days reading CollegeCandy, no?)

Young adult fiction defined my childhood more than any episode of Saved by the Bell could ever hope to. So this week I thought I’d pay tribute to my top ten teen novels. These are the ones that really did change my life.

10. P.S. Longer Letter Later. Remember the days of hand written letters? The days before e-mails? The days when you had to know addresses that didn’t have @ in them if you wanted to stay in touch with people? Well, I do. I loved this book so much that my 6^th grade BFF and I actually started writing letters to each other. We were in different homerooms. It was almost as bad as being in different states.

9. Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging. Do you know this was actually required reading at  my high school? I’m not sure what they were thinking. But I really did love Georgia Nicholson and all her snogging adventures. Especially that whole kissing lesson incident. I remember that very clearly. Read More »

To be honest, I had never really read much of Meg Cabot’s work. I dabbled in the Princess Diaries series (FYI: so superior to the movies) and I know she is a fabulously well-known chick-lit author, but nothing I saw ever enticed me to pick it up and give it a go. But after receiving “Runaway,” the latest in her “Airhead” series (“Airhead” and “Being Nikki” are the first two novels) from her publisher, I decided to give it a whirl. (Hey, it was a free book!)

And boy, am I ever happy I did! This was hands-down one of the most entertaining reads I’ve had in a loooooooong time.

The series focuses on two girls: Emerson Watts and Nikki Howard. Emerson is your average video-game playing nerd, while Nikki is a world famous supermodel and the face of Stark Industries, an amalgamation of business industry giants: Wal-mart, Victoria’s Secret, Apple, among others. They set up mega-stores that cause small businesses to shut down, they hold an annual lingerie fashion show featuring their Angels and they sell cutting-edge computer and electronics.

In the original novel, Nikki tried to blackmail Robert Stark, head of the company, and he tries to have her killed in a “freak accident” at one of the stores. Emerson Watts also happens to be in the store and have a similar accident happen: a TV falls on her head. Because Nikki is the face of the company, Robert still wants to use her body, so he has scientists engineer a body transplant, putting Emerson’s brain into Nikki’s body. Read More »

Welcome back to The Rival Rundown! If you’ve always wanted to give props to your school on CC, now’s your chance! Shoot us an email explaining what’s awesome and unique about your school (or what stinks about Rival U) at rivalrundown@collegecandy.com!

Let’s travel to the Midwest, where the people are friendly, the food is hearty, and the state school rivalries are relentlessly combative. In the great state of Indiana, two state school systems (Indiana University and Purdue University) are so entrenched in a battle for loyalty that many homes boast signs in their windows reading “A House Divided”–or in other words, the domain has both Purdue and IU alumni.  Can one school win the rights to true Hoosier pride?

1. Mascot Match-up

Indiana – The Hoosiers are not only the university mascot but the state nickname–a term for someone who transports bales of cotton.  Though a derogatory word in other parts of the country, a Hoosier is a label of pride in Indiana!
Purdue – The Boilermakers get their moniker from the longstanding tradition of excellence in engineering at Purdue, which in the 1890s (at the time of the mascot’s inception) meant toiling in the forge room to boil and meld metal.

Three credits to: Indiana, since it takes some balls to claim a questionable slang term for a school (and state) nickname! Read More »

Since the Internet has taken over our lives, we’ve been given a little gift called The Blog.

A blog is the new school term for “Dear Diary”, and who would have ever guessed that diary entries could be so entertaining — entertaining enough for people to make a career out of exposing their inner most thoughts, desires, confessions, and judgements.

Well, publishers caught onto the idea quickly and said, “hey, this sh*t could actually sell.” Reading words that most people think will remain anonymous makes the reading fresh. Sincere. Real.

Because of the over-saturation of “reality TV”, (‘true life stores’ manipulated entirely by producers and crafted into audience friendly material), people were yearning for something genuine that made all of their daily dramas and horrific embarrassments, dating stories, and “disorders” seem normal.

Bloggers started to say f*ck the fake stuff, and began to write about their orgasms, financial troubles, divorces, narcissism, every little detail down to the nitty gritty. And guess what happened? Audiences clamored for MORE. Read More »