Title: How Not to Be Popular
Author: Jennifer Ziegler
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 1.5/5
Summary: Maggie is in her senior year of high school, and her hippie parents are moving the family. Again. It hurts too much to say goodbye, so what would happen if in their new town, she tried to not make friends?

Review: I probably should have stopped reading this after 50 pages because I didn’t really like it.

Things that bothered me:

  • Too much internal dialogue. It’s boring when the main character just comes out and tells you her emotions all the time.
  • Ending fizzled. The only thing that kept me reading was the budding relationship between Maggie and Jack. And then the ending wasn’t even satisfying in that department.
  • Dialogue attributions that got on my nerves. Don’t tell me you “reply truthfully.” I should be able to tell whether you’re lying. On second thought, don’t even tell me you “reply”! I know I’m being petty. But as long as I am…
  • Crap everywhere. Maggie likes to say “crap” a lot—the first two words of the book are “Oh crap.” That’s fine. I am not a stranger to the 4-letter word. But she comes up with these variations on “crap” that I guess are supposed to be funny but just struck me as dumb. I mean, “Crap burger!” and “Crap-a-roni!”? Really?

Borrow: Your local library | Swap
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