Very LeFreak is really Veronica, but even her mother said that she is very Very. She is in second semester of her freshman year at Columbia but may be in the process of failing out because of her addiction to all things technological. Since coming to school, she has endeared herself to her fellow dorm mates by throwing wild parties, organizing an online forum called The Grid, coordinating flash mobs around campus. She is living beyond her means by going online shopping and maxing out her credit card. Her friends stage an intervention with the help of Dean Dean and the resident advisor Dreabie or Debby. She winds up going to rehab at Emergency Services for Computer-Addicted Persons or ESCAPE where she has to give up her iPhone and all other technology including electricity. Cohn captures the atmosphere of how technology speeds up life and so-called multitasking with technology can lead to distraction keenly and there are many laugh-out-loud moments in the book. Events toward to end of the book are hard to believe. This read is definitely for more mature readers as the language and sexual content can get graphic. ( )

Completely inane, but cute. ( )

there will be those who care enough about Very to finish the book, but I am not one of them ( )

“Very LeFreak” by Rachel Cohn (320 pages) had such an interesting premise: Witty college student deals with technology addiction. Hilarity ensues, right? Well, not exactly.

The main character, Very, is well, to put it nicely, VERY, VERY annoying.

I realize that chatacters have to have flaws to grow and everything, but jeez!

There are even characters that I actually enjoyed in the book, if only they were the title characters.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this book does have some redeeming qualities. It had some laugh-out-loud funny parts. I couldn’t get enough of her grandma! And … yeah.

And I am not sure how it went so wrong. I lived “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist!” Guess Cohn is just better as a team.

Bottom line: It is OK. It is a quick read, so at least there’s that. ( )

Reviewed by Breanna F. for TeensReadToo.com

Very LeFreak (real name: Veronica) is a freshman on scholarship at Columbia University who is addicted to technology. She's constantly on her laptop doing anything and everything she can think of. She's attached to every single type of music that she has on her iPod, and she's practically conjoined to her iPhone. She's always sending out meme's during class or making random playlists, and of course talking to her online crush, El Virus. They've been talking for quite a while and love to play out crazy fantasies with each other, but they have never seen each others faces. Very also cannot seem to stop moving. She's constantly throwing parties and getting completely trashed. She doesn't seem to have an off button.

Eventually her roommate, Jennifer (to Very it's Lavinia); her sort of ex-friend, Bryan; her RA, Debbie; and the Dean stage an intervention, letting Very know that all of her technology usage is getting way out of hand: i.e. she's addicted. Bryan has confiscated her laptop, and her iPod and iPhone are in the hands of Lavinia and Debbie. Very thinks this is ludicrous: how the heck can she live without her technology?

She gets over the whole "being told you're an addict to technology" thing pretty quickly, actually. But when one of her friends who wasn't really big on the intervention in the first place gets her use of a laptop, some information gets out to her which leads to Very practically killing Bryan.

She wakes up in the psych ward with Lavinia and her Aunt Esther over her. She is told that she will be going to a sort of rehab place called ESCAPE, which stands for Emergency Services for Computer-Addicted Persons Everywhere, in Vermont. Very is livid at first, but once there for a week she actually starts to open up to her therapist and all of her emotions start coming out. But then a sort of weird twist of fate occurs and her progress could start spiraling downwards.

First off, there was a lot of very mature material in this book so I wouldn't recommend it to younger readers. Some of what went on I thought was a little unnecessary to be putting in a book for teens, but I suppose some people like that. Despite the unnecessary material, this was an interesting read. I've never thought that someone could get that out of control with technology. But once Very starts pouring out everything that has happened to her throughout her life, it makes sense why she'd want to escape into the virtual world. The girl definitely had a tough life. But of course, getting way too involved with her technology ended up making her life all the more difficult.

VERY LEFREAK was overall a great book. The element of surprise plays a fairly big part. Many parts I never saw coming, which made the book really great, and the ending wasn't really lackluster, either. If you've read Rachel Cohn in the past, you'll be sure to like this book, and even if you haven't it is sure to be enjoyable. ( )