by Jaimie Admans
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Published: August 1st 2013
Format Acquired: ebook (thanks Dianne of Oops I Read Again Book Tours and Jaimie!)
Purchase: Amazon
“New Year’s Resolutions:
1. Lloyd Layton will know I exist. He once said three whole words to me, so this is obviously progress. If I don’t get a proper conversation out of him soon, then I’ll take my top off and streak through the cafeteria, because nobody could fail to notice these boobs.
2. I will not get expelled for streaking through the cafeteria.”
Those are the words that begin her mission.
Chessie is fourteen, not pretty enough, and very much in love. Lloyd Layton is hot, popular, and unaware of Chessie’s existence.
Her goal is clear: to get Lloyd to love her as much as she loves him, and she has exactly one year to do it.
As Chessie’s obsession with Lloyd reaches boiling point and she starts to spin a web of lies that spiral out of control, Lloyd turns out to be not quite the prince she thought he was. Can Chessie avoid the gathering storm before things go too far?
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Not Pretty Enough is a contemporary young adult comedy suitable for ages thirteen and over.
Book two in the series will be released early 2014.
I think I would've liked this book if it were written differently. For the first time in a long time (so long I can't even remember the last time) I read a Young Adult book that's actually different... both in a bad and in a good way.
So let's start off with the bad: Chessie. I honestly did not like any part of her. At first I thought I would totally love her because she kept talking about her ginormous boobs in a funny way. Funny/witty female protagonists are always a plus for me. However, Chessie's drive to get Lloyd to notice her went a little overboard in my opinion. Okay it wasn't just a little. It went REALLY overboard. Every chapter involved one of Chessie's plans backfiring. I'm serious, every chapter was the same as the last one. It was tiring seeing the same thing over and over again. I felt sorry for and annoyed at Chessie for being so obsessed on getting his crush to notice him. Chessie getting embarrassed constantly made the book so predictable even before I reached the halfway mark. Chessie's definitely a go-getter and I liked that about her. Unfortunately, she wasn't thinking straight for most of the book - she was so impulsive and downright crush-crazy! Trust me, I know how it feels to be young and crushing hard on someone who seems so unattainable. But this was, oh yeah, something else! And I don't really mean that in a good way. I knew that there was a point to it all but I think there could've been some other way to get the message across.
Which now brings me to what I did like: the message. At the end of the book we see just what this book is trying to tell its readers - just be yourself. It's such a meaningful message that plenty of teenage girls should really keep in mind. And it wasn't delivered through a sappy romance. If it weren't for Chessie's dumbass moves, I would've appreciated the message more. I just feel that it came in too late. It took one horrific experience with Lloyd for Chessie to see him for what he really is. I mean come on! There were earlier signs!
This book had a lot of potential. It would've been better if the approach was a little different. Less bad decisions maybe? I don't know. But I sure didn't like seeing the protagonist getting humiliated over and over again. This is not for me but I do think it's okay. Check it out yourself, you might like it more than I did.
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