REVIEW| Bookshop Girl

Bookshop Girl (Bookshop Girl #1)
Chloe Coles
⭐⭐

Goodreads

UK Publisher: Hot Key Books
UK Release Date: June 14th, 2018

** Received via Netgalley from the Publisher in exchange for an honest and truthful review.**

Synopsis:

Bennett's Bookshop has always been a haven for sixteen-year-old Paige Turner. It's a place where she can escape from her sleepy hometown, hang out with her best friend, Holly, and also earn some money.

But, like so many bookshops, Bennett's has become a 'casualty of the high street' - it's strapped for cash and going to be torn down. Paige is determined to save it but mobilising a small town like Greysworth is no mean feat.

Time is ticking - but that's not the only problem Paige has. How is she going to fend off the attractions of beautiful fellow artist, Blaine? And, more importantly, will his anarchist ways make or break her bookshop campaign?

Review

I don't think this book is going to be for everyone. And I think that falls primarily down to the way in which Coles constructs her hyper-realistic-teen narrative voice. This definetly reads younger and better suited toward the younger side of Young Adult audiences with its silly humor (that reminded me a lot like Louise Rennison's books) and excessive oh-em-gees.

This book tries to incorporate feminism into it, but fell kind of flat. 

"It's a typical example of Male privilege. The assumption that they can say whatever they like to girls. The assumption that women or girls are there for their entertaiment."

Although this is stated, I never felt like this was pushed against and challenged. Paige only comments on it and as a reader I feel like this could have been something to address as a sub-plot. Telling the reader that you shouldn't stand for it but not showing the reader that it can be stood against and fully verbalized.

The plot twist at the end with the love interest was very predictable, and he came off as a bit of a knob pretty much the whole way through. Although, I really enjoyed the small tid-bits that we get of some of the older people Paige meets at a life drawing class. They were fun and really supportive, and it felt like a genuine budding friendship between them. Proving that it doesn't matter if you're not the same age, you can still be friends!

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| AMAZON UK | WATERSTONES | BDP |