Gigi and her two best friends, Neerja and Bea, are smart girls. They work really hard in high school so that they can get whatever they want in college. But when they realize that nobody at school really knows who they are, they decide it’s time to make their mark on high school. Neerja goes out for the school play, Bea joins the skiing team, and Gigi runs for student rep. As they each step outside of their “smart girl” comfort zone, they start to realize that just being smart isn’t everything.
As a “smart girl” in high school, I felt like I could relate to the main character pretty well. What I couldn’t quite relate to was the fact that there were “hidden intellectuals” among the popular crowd. Either you’re smart and everyone knows it, you’re popular and everyone knows it, or you’re both and everyone knows it. At least that’s how it was at my high school. It wasn’t cool to pretend to be dumb, but it wasn’t uncool to not be taking all IB courses (yeah, I went to an American high school that offered IB classes, it was weird). Anyway, that was kind of the only thing I didn’t like about the book–the fact that I felt like high school life was a little over-dramatized.
On the plus side, I thought the characters were really fun! Gigi, Neerja, and Bea were an awesome group of girls who were all really supportive of each other. I liked that they didn’t really fight or ever have a weird third wheel thing happen. I thought Gigi in particular was a cool character and somebody that I would have liked in high school. I like that she had a thing for Eleanor Roosevelt and that her hero was Bones. The Bones thing especially just makes her feel more real.
Overall, it was a fun and easy read. It didn’t have a lot of character depth or development, which is something that I usually like to see, but I liked it anyway. This is the second book that I’ve read by Sarah Strohmeyer (the first being How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True) and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed both of them.
Overall Rating: 4
Violence: None
Sexual Content: Mild
Language: Mild
Smoking/Drinking: Mild
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