I just read Getting the Girl by Susan Juby and really enjoyed it. I thought Juby captured the feeling of high school cliques and the pressures of being a teen girl quite effectively. Showing the high school "girl world" (I had to draw some comparisons to Mean Girls as I read) through the eyes of a grade nine boy was a different approach and worked really well.
That being said, I was not looking forward to reading this book. I'll admit I went to Chapters and bought the cheapest book they had from this week's list, and the other books available (Zusack's I am the Messenger and Vizzinni's Be More Chill) looked so much cooler and edgier. The cover of this edition of Getting the Girl is pretty awful. The photograph made me imagine something really cheesy. The subtitle of the book gives a hint of its cleverness and humour, but given in the context of the cover I was expecting a bad Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging knock-off. We've talked about book covers in class, and this example really drove the point home. Had I wanted a cheesy romance, I would have been difficult. If I was looking for a witty mystery novel, I never would have picked up this book. What were these publishers thinking???
Seriously?
That being said, I was not looking forward to reading this book. I'll admit I went to Chapters and bought the cheapest book they had from this week's list, and the other books available (Zusack's I am the Messenger and Vizzinni's Be More Chill) looked so much cooler and edgier. The cover of this edition of Getting the Girl is pretty awful. The photograph made me imagine something really cheesy. The subtitle of the book gives a hint of its cleverness and humour, but given in the context of the cover I was expecting a bad Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging knock-off. We've talked about book covers in class, and this example really drove the point home. Had I wanted a cheesy romance, I would have been difficult. If I was looking for a witty mystery novel, I never would have picked up this book. What were these publishers thinking???
Seriously?
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