Guest Review: The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg.

Before I started this YA adventure, I told my friends that they were always more than welcome to post their YA reviews over here if they wanted and my BBB Ames was the first to take me up on my offer.

This is why Ames is my favorite. I heart her so much and if you guys don’t know how awesome she is, you guys are definitely missing out but you can get to know her through her book blog, Thrifty Reader. Go on ahead and go visit her, you won’t regret it. She’s totally awesome sauce and everyone should know and love her too!

So without further adieu, here’s Ames review of The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg.

Love is all you need…or is it?

Penny is sick of boys and sick of dating, so she vows: No more. She’s had one too many bad dates, and has been hurt by one too many bad boys. It’s a personal choice…and soon everybody wants to know about it. It seems that Penny’s not the only girl who’s tired of the way girls change themselves (most of the time for the worse) in order to get their guys…or the way their guys don’t really care about them.

Girls are soon thronging to The Lonely Hearts Club (named after Sgt. Pepper’s band), and Penny finds herself near legendary for her non-dating ways – which is too bad, since the leader of The Lonely Hearts Club has found a certain boy she can’t help but like…

This book first came to my attention at the beginning of the year. There was quite a bit of blogger buzz about this and since I was on a YA kick, I decided to read it.

Penny Lane Bloom’s parents love the Beatles. So much so they named all three of their daughters after Beatles songs. And Penny has just recently caught her boyfriend cheating on her. On the night she decides to go all the way. She’s sick I tell you, sick of all the horrible things teenaged boys do to girls. You see, Nate and Penny have been friends since they were children and finally during the summer she turned 16 they’re together-together. But then he goes a pulls a typical boy move. Ugh

Dan, Derek, and Darren — and that was only sophomore year. I was cheated on, lied to, and used. The lesson I’d learned? To stay away from guys whose first name began with the letter D, since they were all the Devil.

Maybe Nate’s real name was Dante The Destroyer of Dreams. Because he was ten times worse than the three Ds combined.

So Penny turns to the only men she can, the Beatles. And listening to their lyrics, she decides to start up the Lonely Hearts Club, membership one. The rules? Basically not to date during high school. Not to ditch her girlfriends for a guy. Basically to NOT let her identity become absorbed by a guy’s. Take her childhood friend Diane. Diane is basically called Ryan’s girlfriend. As in that’s how people refer to her. She also ditched Penny once her and Ryan began dating.

And guess who’s starting to chat Penny up on the first day of school? Diane. Penny doesn’t trust this latest move of Diane’s because they haven’t spoken in years. But Diane and Ryan broke up over the summer and Diane wants to renew their friendship. After coming clean with each other, Penny tells Diane about the Lonely Hearts club and from there word of the club spreads. And as the junior girls reclaim their independence and having fun doing so, a bunch of people get their noses out of joint about it. Like the principal:

“The problem is, Mrs. Bloom” – Principal Braddock’s face was explosive – “that after that article came out in the Monitor, a lot of the males at this school have been complaining. Not only that, but I’ve received some troubling reports from my Student Advisory Committee.”
Wait, Ryan wouldn’t.
“Nothing has happened yet, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t. This spells trouble — T-R-O-U-B-L-E.”
Mom got up. “Well, I don’t really give an S-H–“

LOL Penny has such cool parents.

So yeah, the Club gets a whole bunch of people upset (namely the junior boys) but Penny and her friends have found something good. But it all starts going downhill when Diane’s ex, Ryan, starts showing an interest…

All right, I thought The Lonely Hearts Club was cute cute cute! First of all, I love the Beatles. So I totally got Penny’s love for them. And the cute little Beatles stuff going on throughout this book was great. Like a boy singing karaoke to Penny. Awww. And then there’s Penny herself. She’s a great character. She has her great group of friends and decides to put them first before boys. That’s something I can get behind! And her friends. *sigh* This book has the perfect cast of characters. It’s not so much the romance that made this book enjoyable – it was the friendships. And don’t get me wrong, the romance was cute too. There’s some stress for Penny over Ryan on two fronts. First she’s the founder of the Club, so she’s kind of against dating. LOL Then there’s the fact that Ryan is her friend’s ex-boyfriend. And you know girl code, you can’t date your friend’s ex.

The Lonely Hearts Club gets an A- from me! Definitely check it out.

Thanks so much Ames for stopping by and please feel free to stop by and review ANYTIME! =) Love you lots sweets!

-R

Buy the book: B&N|Borders|Amazon
Book cover credit: http://barnesandnoble.com

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