Poor Cyrie Bergerac has one major flaw: her nose. It's huge! She's smart, witty and the editor of the high school newspaper, but all of those things won't get her what she wants, which is her dreamy crush, Eddie "Rox" Roxanninoff. Rox has it all: looks, brains, and popularity. He's also one of the nicest guys that Cyrie has ever met. Just when Cyrie thinks that Rox may be falling for her, she finds out that Rox has a crush on Leyla, her best friend. What follows is a hilarious plethora of e-mail exchanges, where Cyrie writes to Rox as Leyla. Rox has no idea what's going on. He is confused by Leyla's behavior, which doesn't quite match up to the lovely girl he has gotten to know in the e-mails. Will Cyrie be able to tell Rox the truth? The book has a rather sweet ending, which readers are sure to love.
I absolutely adored this book. Every teen girl has something that she's insecure about and I remember hating my nose, so I identified with this story on a personal level, but I think that everyone will be able to identify with Cyrie's need to be accepted by her peers. She wants to fit in. I thought that Emily Franklin did a fantastic job at creating a modern retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac, which has always been one of my favorite plays. Franklin has Cyrie take on the role of Cyrano and Eddie is the Roxanne character. The romantic letters were e-mails and the whole kissing scene doesn't take place under a balcony, but rather at a Halloween party, where Leyla and Cyrie are both in disguise. The key element of this interpretation is that Cyrie, who just like Cyrano has verbal sparing abilities that can humiliate any enemy, cannot seem to look beyond her nose. On a positive note though, Cyrie learns to accept herself and discovers that looks are definitely not everything!
http://www.amazon.com/At-Face-Value-Emily-Franklin/dp/0738713074/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247250114&sr=8-1
