It's chic to be geek! If you're somebody like Shelby Chappelle, a smart, witty, pretty geek army of one, you can't just put a poster up at school and advertise for somebody to be your best friend. But now freakishly tall Becca Gallagher has moved to town, with her dragon tattoo and wild ideas. Suddenly Shelby's mad scientist father and their robot, Euphoria, seem normal. They become best friends instantly. But Becca wants to shake things up at school and look for "others of our kind"...and decides to form the Queen Geek Social Club. The thing is, this guy Fletcher Berkowitz keeps nosing around, asking lots of questions about the Club. He's cute, and interesting, and possibly likes Shelby. Therefore, she must torture him. One good thing about being a loner: no one can break your heart.(summary courtesy of Amazon)
There were some things about this book that worked and some that didn't.
What worked: The characters. They were wacky and zany enough to be believable. The whole idea of starting a club for geeks is just weird enough to sound like it could fly. I'm sure something like that might actually be popular at some of our schools, right? Shelby and Becca also had some great friendship chemistry going. When they first met each other, it just kind of felt right. It really clicked for me. Even among people, I don't think that happens very often so it was great that Laura Preble was able to convey that kind of connection through prose.
What didn't: The whole book was kind of slow to me. There was nothing about it that grabbed me or really made me want to keep reading. At all. And while the afore mentioned wackiness can be a good thing, I think it got rather out of hand. It sort of turned into a big free for all, anything flies, type of situation which isn't all that fun to read about. I wanted more structure and normalcy. Shelby also kind of annoyed me at points because she was so single minded. She got upset or discouraged over the littlest things, which wasn't fun to read about either.
In conclusion: This was an okay book. Not superb, not horrendous, just in between. I suppose I recommend it, but really, only pick it up if you've got nothing better to read, because it won't do much for you and what book's worth reading if you're bored throughout the whole thing?
