The Best Reader + TIME

Girlfriend Material — Melissa Kantor

"An easy, fast paced read, this book demands readers' emotions and (if most are like me) readers will have no problem handing them over. Several times throughout the book I had to shut it to regain my composure (the true sign of a great book)." — Miss Remmers

From Amazon.com...

"If Kate were Lady Brett Ashley, the devastating heroine of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, she'd spend her summers careering around the Riviera in her coupe, breaking hearts by the dozen--because why not? In reality, Kate's never even had a boyfriend, and she'll be spending the summer abetting her mom's lame ploy to make her dad jealous: running off to Cape Cod and crashing at the seaside home of her wealthy friends, the Cooper-Melnicks. To add to the shame, the Cooper-Melnicks' gorgeous daughter Sarah is a bit like Lady Brett, and she seems less than thrilled to hang out with her new houseguest. Any dreams Kate once had of a perfect summer are ruined.

That is, until Sarah's cute, witty friend Adam starts drawing Kate into the fold--and seems intrigued. With Adam around, Kate feels like she just might have a bit of heartbreaker potential after all. But when a breezy summer romance quickly grows more complicated can Kate keep pretending her relationship with Adam is just a carefree fling? Or will she take the risk and tell him her real feelings? Suddenly Kate is asking herself a question she never thought she'd stoop to: Is she girlfriend material?"

What a great book! I started and finished this book in one night. I found myself laughing out loud (despite the parents being asleep down the hall), blushing along with the protagonist, Kate, being a complete girl with my out loud "awwws," and being just as disappointed as Kate with the opposite sex. An easy, fast paced read, this book demands readers' emotions and (if most are like me) readers will have no problem handing them over. Several times throughout the book I had to shut it to regain my composure (the true sign of a great book).

The characters and plot were believably real and intriguing. I couldn't help but love this novel. The above description doesn't do this book justice at all. While the themes of the novel are pretty generic (friendship, love, family, relationships in general) this book identifies a key concept or issue that many growing readers deal with on a daily basis: divorce. For a while it seemed every YA novel dealt with divorce in way or another, but, come to think of it, this is the first book I've read since June (when I started this blog) that addresses this issue directly. Many young adults, like Kate, believe that their parents are happily married and then find out that it is somewhat of a facade. It is this indirect theme of relationships that really sets this book apart: the relationships between Kate and her mother, Kate and her father, Kate and her sister, and between Kate's parents. This book is about a lot more than being a girlfriend, but about surviving life as a teenager.

A light, easy read that addresses several issues without being preachy and direct, I would highly recommend this novel.

Favorite Quotes:
"Apparently he was too busy living his own life to be a character in the imaginary novel that was mine" (61).
"You must think I'm about as sophisticated as a Big Mac" (156).
"I felt at home in a library. Novels, writers, readers. These were my people" (190).
"Who needed boys when you had books?" (190).

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Girlfriend Material — Melissa Kantor + TIME