Review: Geek Girl by Holly Smale

Title: Geek Girl
Author: Holly Smale
Publisher: HarperCollins
Rating: 2/5 Stars
Paperback, 378 Pages
Published February 2013

Summary: Harriet Manners knows a lot of things. She knows that a cat has 32 muscles in each ear, a "jiffy" lasts 1/100th of a second, and the average person laughs 15 times per day. What she isn't quite so sure about is why nobody at school seems to like her very much. So when she's spotted by a top model agent, Harriet grabs the chance to reinvent herself. Even if it means stealing her Best Friend's dream, incurring the wrath of her arch enemy Alexa, and repeatedly humiliating herself in front of the impossibly handsome supermodel Nick. Even if it means lying to the people she loves. As Harriet veers from one couture disaster to the next with the help of her overly enthusiastic father and her uber-geeky stalker, Toby, she begins to realise that the world of fashion doesn't seem to like her any more than the real world did. And as her old life starts to fall apart, the question is: will Harriet be able to transform herself before she ruins everything?

I've heard that a lot of people liked this book, so I decided to give it a try. Once I started reading it I realized that it was more of a Middle-Grade book than a Young Adult one, but I decided to give it a try anyway.

Maybe it's the book itself, or maybe it's just because I'm older now, but the story felt incredibly childish to me. I've read some Middle Grade stories before and not had this issue, so I thought maybe it wasn't that. The main character, Harriet, just seemed way too immature, which made getting through reading the book increasingly difficult. 

I feel like the story itself just seemed entirely too unrealistic. Granted, it's a book, but like...Harriet just gets discovered wearing gross gym clothes at a convention and gets signed on to be a model for one of the biggest designers in the field? With one of the cutest guys? And everyone's just totally okay with that? It just felt like everything was happening way too quickly, to the point that it almost seemed unrealistic. 

Long story short, I felt that this story basically was rushed and threw in a bunch of small, unrealistic situations to teach some life lessons to younger readers, but it ended up feeling just really unrealistic and...weird. The only way I can describe the book is as "okay." It wasn't god-awful, but it wasn't great either.

I don't think I'll be continuing with the Geek Girl series, but that's just because this book wasn't my cup of tea. It doesn't mean that it can't be yours, though, so I definitely recommend giving it a decent try!