Main Character: Janie
Love Interest: Monster
Series: None
Author: Website|Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads
Janie Gorman wants to be normal. The problem with that: she’s not. She’s smart and creative and a little bit funky. She’s also an unwilling player in her parents’ modern-hippy, let’s-live-on-a-goat-farm experiment (regretfully, instigated by a younger, much more enthusiastic Janie). This, to put it simply, is not helping Janie reach that “normal target.” She has to milk goats every day…and endure her mother’s pseudo celebrity in the homemade-life, crunchy mom blogosphere. Goodbye the days of frozen lasagna and suburban living, hello crazy long bus ride to high school and total isolation–and hovering embarrassments of all kinds. The fresh baked bread is good…the threat of homemade jeans, not so much. It would be nice to go back to that old suburban life…or some grown up, high school version of it, complete with nice, normal boyfriends who wear crew neck sweaters and like social studies. So, what’s wrong with normal? Well, kind of everything. She knows that, of course, why else would she learn bass and join Jam Band, how else would she know to idolize infamous wild-child and high school senior Emma (her best friend Sarah’s older sister), why else would she get arrested while doing a school project on a local freedom school (jail was not part of the assignment). And, why else would she kind of be falling in “like” with a boy named Monster—yes, that is his real name. Janie was going…
This was such a quick read. It wasn’t one of those long, drawn out books that is full of deep thoughts and depressed characters. This book was fun, quirky and perfect for a lazy afternoon. This book follows Janie Gorman as she tries to be normal at school. Her best friend Sarah has the A lunch which is where all of Janie’s old friends from middle school is and she’s stuck in the other lunch period with all of the popular people who couldn’t care less about her and know her only as Farm Girl.
Janie is dying to be normal, to fit in with the kids from school but she lives on a farm and how on earth are people supposed to forget about that? Especially if she comes to school with goat poo on her shoe and stinks up the bus? Janie has retreated to the library during her lunch period where she can be off in her own little world and not have to worry about braving the crowds in the cafeteria. Sarah thinks she should give the cafeteria a go but Janie is much too shy for that.
The one bright spot in Janie’s day is walking by Jeremy I forget his last name with Sarah. Jeremy is so hot and so cool. Janie and Sarah both want to be apart of his world. He hangs out with cool people like Sarah’s older sister Emma and he plays at Jam Band. Sarah wants to learn how to play bass to impress Jeremy and Sarah tells Jeremy that Janie is a good singer. Jeremy tells them that he’s going to hook them up with his friend Monster because he can make some crazy mixes and they’ll be good to go.
Once Monster comes into the picture, the story jumps off. I adored everything about him…even his name. Well, to be honest it took me a while to get used to the idea of someone actually naming their child Monster but still, Monster was a great character that totally made this story come to life.
Janie, being the young girl that she is (freshman in high school) is at that stage in her life when her self esteem is low and she’s unsure about anything and everything. For me, it can get annoying even though I understand what she’s thinking and where she’s coming from. Meeting Monster, for her was just great. He helped her come into her own and he liked her exactly the way that she was and I appreciated that. What I did like about Janie is that even though she was painfully shy and embarrassed about living on a farm, she didn’t let anyone walk all over her.
She was young and impressionable but the minute she did something that she wasn’t too wild about (no matter how hot you are), she stopped liking you. There was none of that, oh but you’re so hot so I’ll let you run all over me business with Janie and I loved that.
For me though, this story was just good. I didn’t grow attached to any of the characters outside of Monster and I really wanted to. There were far too many times when I would want to skip to where Monster would come back into the story because while I enjoyed his part of the story, the rest was just okay. It didn’t keep my attention for longer than a few minutes and that’s pretty sad since this book was so short. I zipped right through it but there times in the middle where the pacing dragged and I wanted to hurry up and get this book read already. I was too anxious for the end of the story that while certain parts were enjoyable, overall it was just okay.
..and that’s your scoop!
Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com
Sounds like a decent borrow-it book. Monster seems like an intriguing character! Thanks for your honest review 🙂
Sounds like a nice book, maybe not a keeper but worth a read! Thanks for being so honest about it! 😀
@YABookQueen: The overall story was just okay but Monster made me laugh and I thought he was sweet.
@Alex: Yes, that about sums up my feelings about this book.