Mostly Good Girls Review

Mostly Good Girls by Leila Sales

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Leila Sales is hilarious! She has given the voice inside my head a voice on the pages. She's also inspired the voice inside my head to be more clever. Not that I talk to myself or anything because that would be totally weird. Okay, maybe just a little.

Violet attends a pricey prep school where the expectations are to play by certain rules. Dress just so, be just so, and always, ALWAYS strive for success by doing your best. Katie is Violet's best friend. Katie is tired of playing the game. Katie wants to feel validation for herself and who she is rather than following rules and adhering to expectations.

Truth is, I hit page 114 still waiting for the conflict or just to answer the question, "What is this book about?" On page 114, I realized that my face hurt. I couldn't stop smiling. The book was Seinfeld - a book about nothing but about everything and it was hilarious. The conflict came but I mostly enjoyed the parts where it was about nothing. As a good blogger knows, a good post is about nothing with a twist be it humor, meaning, or a dangling participle.

Hilarious.

There are mature themes incorporated into the story. Language is not always for mostly good girls. Kind of like watching Seinfeld reruns but knowing the punchline is inappropriate for your children's ears and having to mute while they discuss being sponge - worthy (although sex is only an innuendo in the book).

The chapters are short and succinct which only adds to the humor. One chapter is entitled, "Genevieve is anorexic." The evidence is laid out for the reader as Violet makes the case for Genevieve being anorexic. She's absent. She only drinks Diet Coke. Every couple of weeks she will make some gooey, creamy concoction, like tiramisu, and she will bring it into homeroom, and she will demand in a crazed tone that the rest of us eat it. "All of it!" she will shrill. "As much as you want! Help yourselves! Yum!" etc.

Two chapters later, "Genevieve is not anorexic." In its entirety:

"Genevieve was back in school today. Turns out she just had the flu and was too delirious with fever to let any of her friends know where she was.

"When she found out about the anorexic rumor, she got all indignant and went around complaining, I can't believe you thought I'd been hospitalized!" Though she also sounded a little proud to be so skinny that her classmates had mistaken her for being in advanced stages of a life-threatening eating disorder.

"Whatever, Genevieve. It was a totally rational assumption."

It still hurts. I'm still smiling.

Thanks to All About {n} and Simon and Schuster PulsIt for a copy of this book.



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