Head over heels is a book about a jr girl named Francesca who is going through many teen problems. She is having to deal with the SAT, just like most of the readers are as well. Like any other teen novel, some other problems include romance and deciding which boy to choose. As far as the storyline, it was not the best, you could tell some paragraphs were added here or there just to slide another vocab word in. Though, since this is a book meant to help you with your vocab i gave it 4 stars. I felt that not all the vocab words were used completely correctly but i liked how they were defined along the bottom of the page. This made it easy to understand and it does somewhat leave you hanging at times. I would not recommend this books for boys, unless you are desperate, because it is definitely a chick book. It did help me become familiar with the vocab words, but its not where i can memorize them by reading them once. I also bought Busted and Sun-Kissed by the same spark notes authors to help me become even more familiar with the vocab words. (I have not read them yet but the more examples you hear of a vocab word being used, the more familiar you will become with it.) Considering this is a vocab book, it is an okay storyline, but good to see vocab words used in sentences rather than on a flashcard.

I had read some positive reviews about Sparknotes novels, so I thought that this novel would both help my vocabulary and entertain me. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by the cliched and predictable plot and characters. Not only did it feel like the writer had just taken a standard chick lit formula, changed some names, added a dash of SAT vocabulary, and forgot to add the vital cup of creativity. What disappointed me the most about the book was that it missed the common element in good chick lit- a protagonist the reader really cares about. The heroine, Francesca Castarelli,had little charcater development except the same tired teenage angst involving boys without the wit that usually accompanies it.

You may be asking why I'm so critical of an SAT novel. After all, it's just supposed to enhance vocabulary, right? It's not going to be a bestseller. Yet, the paltry definitions of the SAT words listed at the bottom attest to its uselessness. In some cases, the defintions are even wrong. For example, the word eclectic is defined in the book as meaning selective, when it means to selective or draw from a wide range of sources. The word suggest well- roundedness, not being picky, as the Head Over Heels defintion suggests. Many other defintions are misleading because the author has decided to cut defintions down to one to three words. The novel was also disappointed because, unlike the Marino Mission, another vocabulary enrichment novel, it had no exercises in the back to test your knowledge of the words so you could know whether you were actually absorbing any of the vocabulary.
So if you're desparate to learn vocabulary in less than two weeks and aren't picky when it comes to what you read, then I'd suggest buying it. It does have some moments of humor, but they are few and overshadowed by its thin and unoriginal plot.