High school seniors Charlotte, Zoe, Richie and Nora were losers until they met Kade. Charlotte spent all her time practicing the viola, and being alone. Nora’s parents were hung up on grades, so she became an overachiever to please them. Zoe’s mother was an alcoholic, so she disguised her pain and fended off everyone with tough girl bravado. Richie is gay, and had been constantly bullied because of it.

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I will not be reading this book because it is about girls who get sucked into this group led by this horrible controlling and mean guy and allow him to abuse them and convince them to do horrible mean things. I am increasingly disturbed by the spate of young adult novels where girls are stalked and manipulated by boys and they just take it because they are attracted to the young men.

For additional concerns, please see comment #3.

I will not be reading this book because it is about girls who get sucked into this group led by this horrible controlling and mean guy and allow him to abuse them and convince them to do horrible mean things. I am increasingly disturbed by the spate of young adult novels where girls are stalked and manipulated by boys and they just take it because they are attracted to the young men.

For additional concerns, please see comment #3.

Edit 07/12: I still stand by everything I've said in this review, however I do not and will never support Stopthegrbullies and I feel sad that the author is doing so. Especially when her book is about how bullying - even of those who are bullies - is wrong.
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If I ever say I'm not going to read a book which has been the centre of goodreads controversy, just ignore that and take it as I will probably give in to the pressure of my own curiosity. No matter how much the subject matter (etc.) may displease me, I can't resist the call of a highly-debated book. My initial intentions today when I picked up my kindle and opened [b:League of Strays|10194623|League of Strays|L.B. Schulman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1333189421s/10194623.jpg|15093799] was to read the supposedly gay-bashing scene and then read the last couple of chapters, just so I could work out for myself what the author's intentions were of including such an upsetting event. I ended up reading the majority of the book's second half, however, I am not going to give a rating because I feel that not reading the first part of the book makes me unqualified to do so.

Firstly, I'd just like to say in the author's defence that I've seen no evidence of this sock-puppeting. I know this doesn't necessarily mean it isn't true, but it seems as if goodreads members have become extremely paranoid since the earlier author attacks and a lot of it is without good enough reason. A negative comment on your review from a new member or a private account doesn't mean that it's the author coming to bash your review. There are plenty of morons out there that get off on this kind of thing, we used to just call them "trolls" before we started crying "author". Also, when the author attempted to defend herself and deny the accusations, people then started jumping down her throat for being unprofessional... if something is a complete lie regarding the individual and not her work, then I can see no reason why she shouldn't speak out about it.

Right. And that so-called gay-bashing thing she did. I'm honestly not here to comment on the story or the characters, I'm not going to talk about whether it's boring or engaging - because I think the beginning is a big player in deciding these things and setting up how you see the rest of the novel. This might be a crap story and the characters may be as bland as they come. But one thing I gathered - and it was quite clear - was that the group's ideas were not meant to be viewed positively. It's evident in the way the story ended with Kade getting arrested and Charlotte commenting that he no longer looked attractive - he looked like a criminal. It seems very obvious to me that the author's message was negative about the group and their actions. There are all kinds of lessons you can take away from this, you can learn that violence only breeds violence, that sometimes the worst things start with good intentions, that revenge can make you just as bad as the one who wronged you.

I also think this book goes some way towards showing how people will turn the other cheek to things they don't like if it means they can fit in with a crowd and avoid being the victim. The league offers these comforts to Charlotte, they offer her the kind of life she's always wanted... as long as she plays along with their games.

I hate homophobia. I hate that people can experience so much mental and physical abuse just because they choose (or have no choice) to love someone of the same sex. I hate that it happens... but it does. The author shows that it happens and she eventually shows that any type of bullying is wrong - even bullying to get back at bullies. I'm not sure I'm quite as much of a pacifist as Schulman, but the "two wrongs don't make a right" idea is far better than the gay-hater portrait that has been painted of her. Schulman doesn't hate gays, Charlotte doesn't hate gays. Kade is the sicko who gets a kick out of watching people get beaten up, but we're not actually meant to like him. This is the key thing, if we were supposed to root for a character who likes to see gay people get beaten up, then you could call the author out on her homophobia. But Kade is meant to be a twat, and frankly, this makes all the difference.

One more comment from me: the writing. I've seen it praised, I've seen it described as being like a child's writing... I'd say it's nothing spectacular but is still pretty standard for the young adult genre. In my opinion, it's neither notably good or bad.