THE DATING GAME #4: EX-RATING
Natalie Standiford
Little, Brown and Company
Fiction
ISBN: 0316158763
224 pages

In EX-RATING, the fourth installment of The Dating Game series, a new element is added to the Dating Game website: people can rate their ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends. This allows Lina, Madison and Holly to gather inside information that enables them to make better love matches.

In addition, the girls are guests on a radio show where they describe their reasoning behind creating the website. As a result of their appearance, some parents put pressure on Rod, the Principal, to disband the website --- and he does! Understandably the girls are upset that all their hard work has been removed. So they stage a walkout in the school, which gets one of them suspended.

As if the censorship of their website isn't enough, the girls must cope with a number of personal problems. Holly is doing her best to stand her ground against the stressed-out sister of her boyfriend, Rob. While attempting to plan a wedding in six weeks, she repeatedly puts the guilt trip on Holly so that Holly will help with the details. Lina realizes she has romantic feelings for Walker, but it may be a little too late since he's begun dating someone else. And Mads is dealing with her parents and the censorship issue for the most part.

The setup in EX-RATING is the same as in the other installments. Each chapter opens with a horoscope, and there are love quizzes throughout the novel. One minor complaint, though: Where are some of the characters from the previous books? Mads's boyfriend is mentioned briefly but has no role here as a true character. Sean, Mads's perfect male, makes a cameo appearance, while Lina's object of affection for so long --- her teacher Dan --- has become a cardboard character. Readers have come to care about the major and minor characters who populate this series, so they shouldn't be relegated to the background.

The fifth installment of The Dating Game is a certainty and hopefully will get back to the basics that made the first three books undeniable winners.

   --- Reviewed by Melissa A. Palmer (Melissaenglish72@yahoo.com)

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