A review by lawbooks600
Reckless, Glorious, Girl by Ellen Hagan

emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Representation: Biracial (half Black and half white) and implied Latina and Asian characters
Score: Six points out of ten.

It turns out that a library I went to hasn't ran out of poetry. Yet. That's when I thought when I found out that Reckless, Glorious, Girl was in verse so I picked it up alongside another one. Unfortunately, both of them were only okay and not without flaws. Neither of them were as outstanding as similar texts like Alone by Megan E. Freeman or Under the Broken Sky by Mariko Nagai.

It starts with the first character I see, Beatrice Miller, living with her mother and grandmother during the summer before seventh grade. Reckless, Glorious, Girl has a tedious beginning spanning half of the text but it soon picks up when Beatrice goes to seventh grade but worries about the events that could happen there, as well as all the physical changes she must experience. Reckless, Glorious, Girl shines in its quick chapters and engaging pacing. It was unputdownable. 

I liked that Beatrice was flawed and experienced character development and her dynamics with her mother and grandmother. However, my most frustrating gripe with Reckless, Glorious, Girl is the writing style, because it's like what happens when someone presses the Enter key many times. It's so repetitive. The author doesn't need to repeat herself several times to prove her point. It's like she needed a sledgehammer to do that. The middle 200 pages were only about Beatrice journeying through seventh grade when another character, Chloe, invited her to a sleepover. The last 100 pages were dramatic, but there's a high note at the end.

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