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A review by willwork4airfare
Not That Kind of Girl by Siobhan Vivian
2.0
There is no way for me to rant about this travesty of a slut-shaming book without spoilers so here we go.
That's all this book is-- slut-shaming. It's exactly what the title makes like it sound, a story about a girl too wrapped up in not appearing to be "that girl," whoever "that girl" is actually supposed to mean. She gets involved with this cute popular guy Connor who flirts with her and kisses her and tries to reach out to her and the entire time she is frigid and cold and trying to play some cruel game of hard-to-get that just comes off as completely bitchy. He is nothing but nice to her throughout the entire book and she just completely blows him off and makes him keep everything a secret because she thinks if anyone found out, she'd be the laughingstock of the school. That whole plot point didn't even make sense because dating the popular guy at school makes most girls more popular, no?
Anyway, meanwhile, there's this little girl Spencer who Natalie, the main character, used to babysit and Spencer, while being all of fourteen years old is a sexually liberated woman. And by this, I mean she likes to wear sexy underwear and then bend over while wearing a skirt, she likes to take off her shirt in the middle of a school hallway to make a point to the principal, and lets boys take naked pictures of her on school property. Spencer tries to talk to a crowd of girls and it starts off pretty reasonable, about how women need to own their sexuality, not be ashamed of it. I thought that's where this book was going to go, owning your sexuality. That's a great thing to write a book about. But no, instead Spencer keeps going and says how women need to use their sex to manipulate men and get what they want. One of the examples was that a girl had forced a guy to buy her prom dress. How empowering. To make her winning speech even better, Spencer eventually gets "what's coming to her" when the naked picture gets leaked to everyone at school.
There are absolutely no role models in this book. There is no one to root for. The only semi-decent people were Connor, the boytoy, and Autumn, the former best friend. Autumn, I kind of like, because while the descriptions of her bipolar mood swings didn't really make sense, towards the end, Autumn really stands up for herself and ends the toxic friendship she had going on with Natalie. She is the only person with any sense in the novel.
Eventually, word gets out about Natalie and Connor. But this is only after they finally actually go all the way and Natalie gets pissed at him and doesn't speak to him for a week. When everyone finds out, Natalie is mortified and stays home from school and when Connor tries to reach out to her again she goes off on him and is completely awful to him. Everyone is so shocked that they've been hooking up and even one of her teacher's goes off and says "She didn't seem like that kind of girl."
WHAT KIND OF GIRL? Natalie fully believes that she is in love with Connor, even though she treats him horribly the entire time. So what kind of girl is she supposedly being? A girl that had sex with a guy that she loves? I'm not understanding the shame in any of this.
So then, in the end, the great big resolution? She just basically decides that she's a lot of different girls all rolled into one and it's okay to be that way. And then her and Connor start dating because obviously there had to be a happy ending.
I really can't believe this novel. That message was so horrible I feel bad giving it a two, but the writing wasn't that awful and I genuinely did want to find out what happened, if only because I wanted to see what would finally soften her to Connor, because we all know they had to be together in the end. (Other wise she might be a slut.)
That's all this book is-- slut-shaming. It's exactly what the title makes like it sound, a story about a girl too wrapped up in not appearing to be "that girl," whoever "that girl" is actually supposed to mean. She gets involved with this cute popular guy Connor who flirts with her and kisses her and tries to reach out to her and the entire time she is frigid and cold and trying to play some cruel game of hard-to-get that just comes off as completely bitchy. He is nothing but nice to her throughout the entire book and she just completely blows him off and makes him keep everything a secret because she thinks if anyone found out, she'd be the laughingstock of the school. That whole plot point didn't even make sense because dating the popular guy at school makes most girls more popular, no?
Anyway, meanwhile, there's this little girl Spencer who Natalie, the main character, used to babysit and Spencer, while being all of fourteen years old is a sexually liberated woman. And by this, I mean she likes to wear sexy underwear and then bend over while wearing a skirt, she likes to take off her shirt in the middle of a school hallway to make a point to the principal, and lets boys take naked pictures of her on school property. Spencer tries to talk to a crowd of girls and it starts off pretty reasonable, about how women need to own their sexuality, not be ashamed of it. I thought that's where this book was going to go, owning your sexuality. That's a great thing to write a book about. But no, instead Spencer keeps going and says how women need to use their sex to manipulate men and get what they want. One of the examples was that a girl had forced a guy to buy her prom dress. How empowering. To make her winning speech even better, Spencer eventually gets "what's coming to her" when the naked picture gets leaked to everyone at school.
There are absolutely no role models in this book. There is no one to root for. The only semi-decent people were Connor, the boytoy, and Autumn, the former best friend. Autumn, I kind of like, because while the descriptions of her bipolar mood swings didn't really make sense, towards the end, Autumn really stands up for herself and ends the toxic friendship she had going on with Natalie. She is the only person with any sense in the novel.
Eventually, word gets out about Natalie and Connor. But this is only after they finally actually go all the way and Natalie gets pissed at him and doesn't speak to him for a week. When everyone finds out, Natalie is mortified and stays home from school and when Connor tries to reach out to her again she goes off on him and is completely awful to him. Everyone is so shocked that they've been hooking up and even one of her teacher's goes off and says "She didn't seem like that kind of girl."
WHAT KIND OF GIRL? Natalie fully believes that she is in love with Connor, even though she treats him horribly the entire time. So what kind of girl is she supposedly being? A girl that had sex with a guy that she loves? I'm not understanding the shame in any of this.
So then, in the end, the great big resolution? She just basically decides that she's a lot of different girls all rolled into one and it's okay to be that way. And then her and Connor start dating because obviously there had to be a happy ending.
I really can't believe this novel. That message was so horrible I feel bad giving it a two, but the writing wasn't that awful and I genuinely did want to find out what happened, if only because I wanted to see what would finally soften her to Connor, because we all know they had to be together in the end. (Other wise she might be a slut.)