Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Blog Tour Review: Not Pretty Enough by Jaimie Admans


 
Check out the entire tour line up here

Not Pretty Enough by Jaimie Admans 
Series: Not Pretty Enough, #1
Published: August 1st, 2013
Publisher: Self-published
191 pages (ebook)
Genre: Contemporary young adult comedy
Acquired this book: From the author via the blog tour, in exchange for an honest review
Warning: May contain spoilers
{GoodReads || Buy this book: Amazon}

 
{Read my review of Kismetology, Jaimie's debut}


“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?

Not Pretty Enough is a hilarious coming-of-age story. We meet 14-year-old Chessie, who has made it her mission to get Lloyd Layton, her as-of-yet unrequited love, to notice her and hopefully fall in love with her. What follows is like a comedy of errors full of cringe-worthy embarrassing moments that make you laugh despite yourself because they’re just so horrific (and often horrifically relatable).

I could relate to Chessie in so many ways. At her age, I was overweight, didn’t have many friends, and more often than not had unhealthy, obsessive crushes on boys. I related to her desire to be noticed, and her tendency to stalk (oh yes, I was a definite stalker back in the day, and I wasn’t very good at it either - just ask my childhood best friends), do stupid things to get attention, and really just do stupid things in general. In her mind, she’s not pretty enough, she’s not smart enough, she’s not popular enough, plus she’s a total klutz who tends to draw attention to herself in all the wrong ways.

While this book will likely appeal to most fans of YA, I’d recommend it more for a younger teen audience, I think. At my age, even though I related to and sympathized with Chessie, there were many times I wanted to shake her…hard. I have the life experience she hasn’t had yet and know that boys often aren’t worth obsessing over and trying to change yourself to become what you think they’d like. My fourteen-year-old self would have been bffs with Chessie, and I’d likely have been right there egging her on to get Lloyd’s attention, while making her help me do stupid things (that wouldn’t have seemed stupid at the time, of course) to get my love interest’s attention.

Like any good romantic comedy, at the heart of it, this book had a good message, especially for teenage girls. I don’t want to give anything away, but I really did appreciate that after all she went through and after all the dumb things she did, Chessie really did learn a few important life lessons along the way.

Laugh-out-loud funny, relatable, and with a true-to-life message, Not Pretty Enough is another winner from Jaimie Admans. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next!


Jaimie is a 28-year-old English-sounding Welsh girl with an awkward-to-spell name. She lives in South Wales and enjoys writing, gardening, drinking tea and watching horror movies. She hates spiders and cheese & onion crisps. She has been writing for years but has never before plucked up the courage to tell people. Afterlife Academy is her third novel and she hopes you enjoy it. There are plenty more on the way!

Find Jaimie Online:


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Have you read Not Pretty Enough? What did you think? If you haven't read it, does it sound like something you'd be interested in?
 


2 comments:

  1. Thank you so much, Marie! That's such a lovely review, and I'm so happy that you liked the book! Thanks for being part of the tour! :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. This book sounds like a lot of fun, I enjoy coming of age stories and this looks like it was done well.

    A great review Marie! :-)

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for visiting Ramblings of a Daydreamer! I love hearing what you have to say, and I appreciate every single comment. I hope to see you here again soon! ♥
~Marie

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