Hello Bookworms! Welcome back to the first book blog of the year . Sorry it is a little late, it’s been very busy lately. Anyway, this month, I will be looking at the first book I read of this year: The Manifesto on How to be Interesting. It’s been sitting on my bookshelf for over half a year, so it was finally time to pick it up and read it!
This book covers the life of a girl called Bree, who is a social outcast. She is a stereotypical ‘nerd’ at a private school, where her only friend is also a nerd. Bree knows the popular kids, as everyone does at schools, but isn’t one of them. When she receives another rejection letter for her book, she decides to make a change and have what we would call a ‘glow up’, in which she documents all of her journey as a blog.
This book’s themes and topics were very relational and relevant for the time we live in at the moment, as Holly Bourne’s books normally are. It highlights how much worth and value we put into getting at the top of the popular hierarchy, when in actual fact, it doesn’t have that much to it or anything different to what would constitute as ‘normal’. This is definitely a good read for any teenager, particularly if they are feeling left out or lonely. It helps to realise that you should only do things because you want to, or they make you feel good, and not because people are telling you to or place worth on it.
The book is written in third person, which makes it feel like you are walking the journey with her and beside her. You’re meeting the popular girls, and you’re with her at the party. This creates a much deeper connection with the character, with is continued through the extracts of her blog. I really liked this, because it broke up the narration, and gave more of a deeper insight to what her personal reaction was, and what was going on in her head at that moment in time.
Although this book did have all of these aspects that I absolutely loved, I felt that there were still some areas that I didn’t like as much. One of these was the plot: at some points it was confusing of what her motives were or what she wanted out of the event, which sometimes made me feel lost in what I was meant to be thinking about the character. But, apart from that, and a few minor things, I enjoyed reading the book, and it helped me try and get out of my reading slump.
So, there is my review on The Manifesto on how to be Interesting! I hope you enjoyed it and I would definitely recommend it a read.
Don’t forget if you have a book you want to share, or you had differing views about a book, then you can share them with us, I would love to hear about them! Here is a link for more information: https://www.girlguidinglaser.org.uk/challenges/report-for-the-hive.
Happy reading