Hello and happy Monday. I told you I’d have another review soon, even when you didn’t tell me that I wrote “palette” when I meant “palate.” It’s fine, we’re all fine. Over the weekend I binge-read Adorkable by Sarra Manning and I want to tell you what I think about it.

I’m going to start by saying that this the type of book I’d recommend if you don’t want to put too much thought into anything, or if, like me, you need a palate cleanser. I think you’d like it if you’ve read The Duff by Kody Keplinger or Geek Girl by Holly Smale. Since at my (now not so new) job we structure feedback by pointing the strong points first and then the areas of improvement, this might be the new way in which I’ll write my reviews. So, now that I’ve told you what I enjoyed about Adorkable, I’ll go over the things I didn’t or I would change if I could.

This book was released a month before I graduated high school, which means that the characters are my age. It also means that at that time expressions like “almond eyes” or “exotic” when referring to a person were alright to put on paper. Repeatedly. Was that a structural issue that made me not enjoy the book? Not at all, but it’s still worth mentioning.

Adorkable reminded me of The Duff because there’s a secret relationship that is sexual at its core, which is something I value in YA novels because that was usually not present when I was a teenager. My issue is that, besides the sexual chemistry, the main character and her love interesting had nothing going for them. They would bicker the whole time when they weren’t making out, and, what I think is even worse, Michael, the love interest, would repeatedly mention how he wasn’t attracted to Jeane, and how he didn’t think she was pretty. Now, do we need to be physically attracted to the people we have sex with? I’m going to go ahead and say yes, even if we aren’t initially. I don’t think the plot would’ve changed had Michael found Jeane at least cute. Am I being vain here? Maybe.

Jeane, our main character, would dress in this eccentric way and have views about life and the world that she didn’t share with her classmates. That’s all nice and cool. Jeane, however, hated everyone who wanted to wear jeans or follow fashion trends, or, you know, be like other people (?) Anyway, Jeane was full of anger, and she was plain rude to her classmates, and I could relate to her because as a teenager I was that way, too. I now realize that I was probably envious of those people, but that’s something I’ll work on in therapy. I’m not saying Jeane was envious, but I do think that Jeane would benefit from seeing a psychologist.

Lastly, I think there were plot points that were completely ridiculous, considering the fact that the characters were teenagers, and they could have been way more believable if they’d been written as twenty-something-year-olds in university. I also think a little more exposition with Jeane’s backstory, especially regarding her celebrity status, would’ve been super helpful. That being said, there was a lot of fluff towards the middle that did absolutely nothing to advance the plot, and I don’t see a reason why it was there. You could remove the whole trip thing and the story would still make sense.