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Apr 12, 2013

My Thoughts: Going Vintage by Lindsay Leavitt

 3.5 soft & spicy snickerdoodles.

Cover Love:  Yes.  Beautiful cover!  I love, love, love the pink and green!

Why I Wanted to Read This:
If you have been around here at all in the past few years you know of my love for Sean Griswold's Head by Ms. Leavitt.  I just loved that book and was super excited for this next contemporary romance by her.  Here's the synopsis from GoodReads:

When Mallory discovers that her boyfriend, Jeremy, is cheating on her with an online girlfriend, she swears off boys. She also swears off modern technology. Inspired by a list of goals her grandmother made in 1962, Mallory decides to "go vintage" and return to a simpler time (when boyfriends couldn't cheat on you online). She sets out to complete grandma's list: run for pep club secretary, host a dinner party, sew a homecoming dress, find a steady, do something dangerous. But the list is trickier than it looks. And obviously finding a steady is out . . . no matter how good Oliver (Jeremy's cousin) smells. But with the help of her sister, she'll get it done. Somehow.
Romance?:  Yes, of course.

My Thoughts:

While I was reading I got to a point where I felt very strongly about how Mallory was acting.  So I wrote that down here.  So this first chunk is a "while I was reading" bit--before I was finished:

So I am about 20 pages from being done and I have to day one thing if Mallory doesn't stop acting like such a brat to her mom I am going to come through the book and smack her.  Yes her mother made the post about her (her mother, not Mallory) but that's because it WAS ABOUT HER.  She wasn't asking how to make Mallory feel better, she was asking how to help her connect with Mallory.  Mallory needs to be smacked.  I am so irritated with her it makes me not want to finish the book.

It just bothers me that she is so quick to forgive her Grandma but not her mom!  Also, I think I like Ginnie way more than Mallory.
I liked this book, but I just didn't love it.  I have read some reviews that talk about how great Mallory was and she learned to stand on her own, and I agree with that.  She did and she didn't just jump into a relationship with Oliver, however, she could also be extremely annoying. 

She is so narrow in her focus to "finish the list" that she is blinding herself to other things.  If she was truly self reflective and growing she would be flexible when she needs to be and change things as they come up.  She whined about her mom making Mallory's break up about her, but Mallory ran around making everything about her!

See, I was afraid this would happen.  Writing this review is dredging up feelings I have about Mallory that are making me not have loved the book as much.  So I am going to stop.

Overall I think that there is much that teenage girls can learn from this book:  break ups are very, very hard, but you can come out of them a better person and stronger than ever.

To Sum Up:  I will be happy to have this as part of my library collection and will be sharing it with readers.  It was not written for my age group and I know it will impact several of my readers lives when they read it!

Book bought for my middle school library collection.

4 comments:

  1. Ooo Mallory sounds annoying. Ick. I bet she would annoy me too. Thanks for the warning. I loved this rant.

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    1. She started out fine and I was sympathetic to her, but she really got on my nerves as the book went on. But over all I enjoyed the story!

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  2. I didn't find Mallory annoying, but I do agree with her being annoying about the blog post her mom made.

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    1. I think that was what just brought it all to a head for me. I probably am looking at her too hard with my parenting eyes, but she was so willing to cut everyone else some slack but her mom. That bothered me!

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