This one’s been out since 2005, but if you haven’t read 24 Girls in 7 Days, I think you need to. It has a great balance of humor and romance, as well as a realistic protagonist.
Jack Grammar (and he likes words…imagine that) is looking for a date to prom and his friends decide that they’ll help him out. They put a classified ad in the school’s newspaper with his e-mail and make it sound like he wrote it. Jack gets 200 responses and filters it down to 24 girls that he will go on a date with over the course of a week. After a date, he hopes to know which one to go to prom with.
The real appeal of the story is Jack’s narration. His comments on situations, especially when he’s super-nervous, are pretty funny. The opening scene sets the tone well. Jack is psyching himself out before talking to a girl about prom. The girl seems like she’s going to go with him, but then Jack starts talking about the “transgenic forces of springtime” and she freaks out.
Some of the dialogue is strained, acting more as a set-up for a punchline than advancing the plotline, although I still enjoyed it. The romance is interesting as the reader keeps having to guess who he will spend prom with.
If you’re a fan of Gordan Korman’s Son of the Mob or Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries, I think you’ll enjoy the similar 24 Girls in 7 Days.
