When you’re 11 or 12, firmly in that “tween” category, and middle school is on the horizon, it’s easy to get lost imagining who you might be. New school. New people. People from other elementary schools. It’s a world that TV shows and movies promise will be filled with drama and adventure, sometimes pain, but you take a deep breath and tell yourself that maybe you’ll be one of those few that somehow bypass the awkwardness and pain, and everything will be alright. 

My friends and I devoured issues of YM and Seventeen and read books like Freshman Lies, imagining these different worlds and who we might be. The magazines gave you quizzes to help you determine your personality (Mostly A answers? You’re the Queen Bee, Mostly B’s? Work on coming out of your shell, Wallflower!). Books like Freshman Lies with the multiple perspectives of its main characters, let us try on different personalities for a few hundred pages, thinking of who we might be. 

The multiple perspectives technique is common in YA series. The Babysitter’s Club famously shifts perspectives by book. The Freshman Dorm series uses the shifting perspective technique by chapter, usually, sometimes within the same chapter. In its second book, Freshman Lies, we try on the personalities of these characters, maybe trying to figure out who we were most like, maybe trying to figure out who we wanted to be, but what does that mean in a book centered on the “lies” of the characters? 

Faith was never a character I wanted to try on. I’m not sure why. She almost seemed too perfect: the long blonde hair, mentioned every time her character is in a scene, the perfect high school boyfriend, she even could see that relationship needed to end, and she falls perfectly into an assistant director job her first week of college. Even when she gets caught up in a lie in this book, it’s with an (almost) perfect guy–“Big Man on Campus,” Christopher Hammond. When KC tells Faith that perfect Christopher has a fiance, Faith is stuck in Christopher’s lie, and her non-perfect moment is making out with Christopher (one of those scenes that while PG13 at the most, would probably warrant that “trash” descriptor from my 5th grade teacher). Making out with a (cheating) hot guy. Poor thing. 

Winnie was the girl you wanted to try, the girl you wanted to be… and yet Freshman Lies probably gives her the most boring storyline (even if it is the most realistic). The book keeps promising she is this wild party girl, KC and Faith keep bringing up that is who she is, but then she gets a storyline about not knowing what classes to take and trying to avoid Josh, the guy she has a crush on but in whose dorm room she embarrassingly passed out drunk in the previous book. We end this book with Winnie and Josh talking and maybe a promise of one of these girls having a healthy romantic relationship. I guess we are to interpret Winnie’s lie as she is lying to herself? Trying to figure out who she is going to be? Again, realistic, but kind of disappointing to a tween looking to try on the wild girl persona for a few pages. 

Lauren is the girl you didn’t want to be. The book makes sure of that with a healthy dose of 1990s fat-shaming. Lauren Turnball-Smyth (that’s Smyth, not Smith, dear), Faith’s rich roommate, is not featured on the back of the cover as a main character, but gets her own chapters and storylines and definitely serves as a main character of this book. Lauren’s “lie?” Despite being smart and having all the financial resources in the world, she doesn’t fit in. She’s a tag-along to Faith, Winnie and KC, so she doesn’t fit in there, and she doesn’t fit in at the sorority, where she is pretty sure the sorority accepted her of her family’s money and her mother’s status as a legacy member. The book goes to ridiculous lengths to make Lauren sound unattractive. These are a few of those quotes that could only fly in the toxic body image days of the 1990s: 

• “KC saw Lauren’s sad, pale face, framed by a tweedy beige sweater and a little lace collar. In comparison, KC looked as dark and exotic as a perfect purple rose.” (36) 
• “Lauren put her hands to her soft, round face” (63)
• After her makeover from sorority sister Marielle “I wish I could loan you some clothes, but of course, nothing of mine will fit you” (97)

Reading Lauren’s story as an adult, I don’t think Lauren is doing anything wrong. She’s pretty normal: smart, kind, wealthy, and arguably more self-aware than the other girls. Yet we’re supposed to believe she’s somehow less desirable because she has a “soft, round face.” 

Lauren almost finds a place of belonging in her writing-her one passion. And we may see a spicy storyline for Lauren at the school paper with editor Dash Ramirez–a character who, by his name and the cigarette dangling from his mouth in the newsroom, seems to foreshadow a little adventure for Lauren.

The character I most remember wanting to try on (but not admitting that to my friends, because of course with your friends you talked about Winnie) is KC. For me, the smart girl trying to escape her humble background was the most relatable (except who carries a briefcase to class in their first year of college? Get that girl a reliable JanSport). KC probably has the biggest lie in this book-in her attempts to get ahead, she meets the rich Steven Garth in her business class. Because he sees her driving Lauren’s BMW, he assumes the car is hers and she’s another rich kid. KC doesn’t correct him. KC opens her first credit card, and like many college freshmen, quickly gets into trouble with that credit card, using it to buy fancy clothes to continue her lie. Although KC’s credit card use is an only-in-the-90s scene, as she finds out they don’t call for authorization on purchases less than $50, so she quickly goes over her limit before the bank catches up with her. I remember reading this book in 5th grade and relating the most to KC. My family still drove a 12-year-old Chevy Caprice and I remember once when my family had to drive a group of students on a field trip begging my parents to borrow their friend’s much nicer car for the day. Even if I picked up this book as a real college freshman, I could’ve related to KC’s predicament (although none of my college adventures ended with passionately kissing an oil heir in the rain). I went from my small town (and that Caprice still rusting in the driveway) to yes, a state college, but the most expensive state college in the country-a school which prided itself on its diversity but socioeconomic diversity always seemed to be lacking. 

Being a tween, just like being a college freshman, is a strange time. You don’t know who you are, you’re not sure who you are going to be, but always putting on these white lies while trying to figure it out. Sometimes, we’re not as perfect as the little lie we present. Most of the time, we’re far from it. But we keep trying-trying on identities, trying to find ourselves, trying to find a truth that fits-and hoping that one day, we find out a version of ourselves that’s real. 

That’s So ‘90s Quotes

• “I’m sorry,” she stammered, scribbling on the corner of her fact sheet. “I don’t have any cash on me. I don’t usually carry any.” Steven laughed. “Who are you? Prince Charles or something?” 
• Winnie receives a letter delivered to her dorm room expressing concern over her dropped classes and setting an appointment with an academic advisor.
• “She was wearing just her purple tights, felt shoes and a huge T-shirt that came to the middle of her thighs” 
• He was a fitness fanatic, running in a Gore-Tex jogging suit on the rainy, blustery morning. Changing his course to run over, Dan pulled an order slip and money out of his fanny pack.”