I should title this “Black Sheep Review” as I did not enjoy this as much as every other reader. I love the author but the story itself just did not work for me. I was not a fan of Dimple but I still went into this book with an open mind.
Short recap: Twinkle wants nothing more than to be a famous Hollywood film maker and she will stop at nothing to become just that. Even though she is still in High School, she is a girl that knows what she wants. She also has her eyes set on the most popular boy in school. She just knows that once they start dating, everything in her life will immediately improve.
It was a little difficult for me to write the recap as this story felt like it was one trope on top of another trope over yet another trope. It was difficult for me to get through but I did read until the very end. What I did do was roll my eyes a lot at Twinkle’s absurd thoughts: that dating the most popular boy in school would magically fix her social standing; that she had to fix things with her BFF (Maddie) by trying to convenience her why they were friends to begin with (even though we are never told why they stopped being friends to begin with); that her secret admirer just had to be the popular boy in school and he really had feelings for her the entire time.
Twinkle’s character (much like Dimple) was the reason I disliked this story. I did admire her drive to become a filmmaker but there was not much else about her that I liked. She had such a shallow way of thinking about people that it hurt to read. Yes, she was attracted to the popular boy in school but she never so much as struck up a conversation with him. Why would she magically think everything would change and he would profess his undying love for her? It was as if she thought her social standing at school would be fixed and everyone would love her if they started seeing each other. In my eyes, that was the wrong way to look at a relationship or dating someone. I didn’t agree with Twinkle’s way of thinking and therefore it stood out to me. I also did not like how she became a horrible person towards the end. What she wanted to do to the people that thought she was a friend was despicable. She felt rather selfish the entire story. It was always about what she wanted and who cares about who she hurt to get what she wanted. Don’t get me started about how she yelled at her parents. There were much better ways to handle that.
The awkward thing between Twinkle and Maddie did not make a lot of sense. They were best friends and then they weren’t. That is all the information that we were given. Twinkle did almost everything to pull Maddie back to her as if she was the only friend Maddie could ever possibly need. Again, WRONG. That was so wrong to me.
The secret admirer story line felt like too much. It was one story line that did not need to be there. It was painfully obvious who it was but still Twinkle couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Her reactions towards who she thought it was caused more eye rolls.
It was a struggle for me to overlook the obvious and continue with the story because it was no secret how things would turn out. For me the theme circled around what was always so obvious. Nothing felt like a mystery or a struggle, it was clear as the nose on my face. I did not believe the romance. The random blog that the love interest had was also not necessary. He could have just as easily typed that in an email or text to his friends. The blog entries were random. They just did not add anything to the story. I know a lot of people will love this story, I just am not one of them. I wish I could have read the story through your eyes if you did love it but it was just not for me.
A Gingerly Review 