Recommended: not really?

Thoughts:
I finally found it. I finally found a book whose movie is better. It's pretty much impossible for me to consider this book in its own context without the movie as well, because I've seen the movie so many times I know it very very well and have a really hard time separating it as I read this book. Discovering that it was based on a book was a joy, but the book itself let me down a little bit. Or perhaps more fairly, it sort of confused me.

The broad strokes of the story are the same, with Elle getting dumped by Warner and deciding to follow him to law school, joining an active case on a murder trial with a socialite that she has ties with, all that kind of stuff. But a lot of the characters and the pacing were so different that it was hard to reconcile them. My expectations were definitely set coming into this, but even when I consider it just as a book there were definitely some weak points.

Elle is not as likable as I expected her to be. She skips a lot of classes, and she's actually quite shallow in a lot of ways, and she doesn't seem to actually try very hard. It's a bit of a spoiler so I'll tag it, but in the book the only reason she passes any classes is because

some random dude gave her cheat sheet notes for every class, every year.

I was really unimpressed with her overall and it made me much less interested in her story because I couldn't really root for her.

Her relationship with her friends was also very different. Warner is still a total ass, maybe even more so than the movie. Her friends from her sorority, though, are kind of crappy and don't really stick by her. She does make a new friend or two at her law school, and acknowledges the way that she's changed and who she wants to be, but it was a bit poignant and sad.

There's also zero romance in this book, which is fine but it's weird that it's considered a romance. Just be aware that there are zero scenes that are romantic at all and honestly her trying to win back Warner is only one thread of the overall narration. A lot of it focuses on her growth and her challenges at law school. 

That said, it was also a little bit boring. There was a lot of talk about legal stuff, and it was not thrilling. Time in class was tediously narrated, which I suppose is maybe an accurate feeling to having been there but wasn't the most exciting thing to read several times. A lot of the side characters felt very two-dimensional and cliche, like they were serving a stereotyped purpose and that was it. 

Overall I ended up feeling a bit bemused that this book was somehow noticed by somebody enough to be made into an amazing movie. Kudos to that person for seeing the potential, because the book itself is a bit lackluster. Not a super likable character, no romance, not that funny... If I hadn't seen movie I would have just felt blah about the story.