Project Sweet Life by Brent Hartinger

The great summer that Dave, Victor and Curtis have planned is about to be ruined. Apparently their fathers do not realize that in the summer of your 15th year, getting a job is supposed to be optional. It should be their last summer of sleeping in,playing video games and hanging out at the beach. Instead the three friends are forced to get jobs and make money.

Dave decides this is the worst thing ever, so the friends plot to quickly make the money they would have made in their jobs and then slack away the rest of the summer. Of course, all of this goes wildly awry and Dave has to do more work keeping up appearances than if he just took his fake life guarding job in the first place.

This is a fun book about spending the summer with friends, creating crazy schemes and learning responsibility. Hartinger injects a great sense of humor into his characters and their camaraderie is quite convincing. The plot is not exactly realistic yet Project Sweet Life is a light, fun read.