Rebecca Elliott

A candid and laugh-out-loud journey of family, friends, and fierce mistakes. Haylah Swinton is an ace best friend, a loving daughter, and an incredibly patient sister to a four-year-old nutcase of a brother. Best of all, she's pretty confident she's mastered making light of every situation--from her mom's new boyfriend to unsolicited remarks on her plus-sized figure. Haylah's learning to embrace all of her curvy parts and, besides, she has a secret: one day, she'll be a stand-up comedian star. So when impossibly cool and thirstalicious Leo reveals he's also into comedy, Haylah jumps at the chance to ghostwrite his sets. But is Leo as interested in returning the favor? Even though her friends warn her of Leo's intentions, Haylah's not ready to listen--and she might just be digging herself deeper toward heartbreak. If Haylah's ever going to step into the spotlight, first she'll need to find the confidence to put herself out there and strut like the boss she really is. Rebecca Elliott's hilarious and authentic narrative voice is sure to capture readers' hearts as her plus-sized, teenage heroine navigates learning to love the body she's in while dealing with friends, family, and boys.

Pretty Funny for a Girl

Shareca

The main character is truly what brings down this book. A wonderful premise and an exciting one at that, but the entire book is filled with her stating that "she is fat." It is off putting and very abrasive. The first page says that she is fat about 3-4 times and it was just miserable to read. The voice and tone were fine, but the main character genuinely was terrible. She wasn't nice, she didn't deserve much of what she got, and it took forever to finish. I wanted to see more of who she was outside of being "fat" as she describes, but I never got that. Some parts were good, but they didn't keep me wanting to read. If it wasn't for an ARC I would have never finished this one, unfortunately.

Jelke Lenaerts

I received a galley of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 


Have you ever hated a main character so much that you wanted to throw your book out of the window? Because that's the way I felt about this book. In fact the only reason I didn't is because I read this on my iPad and I still need it for futher reading. But oh my god, this main character is probably the worst one I've ever read about and the book just doesn't recognize it. I don't have an issue with unlikeable characters as long as they're meant to be that way. Haylah was supposed to be relatable and empowering but she wasn't. She constantly brought up her weight, which would have been alright if she hadn't gone on a huge monologue in the first chapter about how she barely even remembers she's fat until she's made fun off and then she does (which NEVER happens in this book by the way) and explode at anyone even mentioning her weight. She seems super unhappy with her weight but the plot makes us believe that she's actually super confident. Shit doesn't match up. Another thing the plot tried to tell us about her, that WASN'T the case at all is that Haylah is a super badass feminist that doesn't need a man. However, she shames every girl she comes across for being a typical girl and being interested in things that she isn't and from the second she first "meets" Leo (she sees him perform, she doesn't actually meet him) all of her inner dialogue that isn't about her being fat was about Leo. However, she doesn't like make-up and dresses, so she's a real feminist right? No, fuck her and her mom for teaching her that wearing make-up and dresses is anti-feminist and girls who do wear both make her whole life about being atractive to boys and only care about boys, boys, boys. Completely ignoring the fact that lesbians also wear make-up and dresses and the fact that most women wear make-up because they like it and because it's art form, not for some stupid DUDE. Especially because the mom starts wearing make-up once she starts dating someone and when her daughter questions her she gets mad at her because the mom is allowed to feel beautiful and attractive for once. YOU THOUGHT HER MAKE-UP IS BAD SO DON'T GET MAD WHEN SHE IS CONFUSED WHEN YOU WEAR IT. Whenever this book tried to do feminist rants it also kept talking about life is just so much easier for boys because they're confident and don't care about their looks and don't have to because girls will like them no matter how they look, which completely ignores all the insecurities MANY guys deal with on the daily. It also rubbed me the wrong way because at a certain point one of Haylah's friends has a crush on a guy and she doesn't get it because according to her he was ugly. Really? Saying guys don't have to worry about looks after you spend the whole book hating on a guy because of his looks? Yeah, that doesn't sit right with me. I also absolutely HATED how much Haylah hated her mom's love interest. She didn't have a valid reason for it. I mean, they try to play it off in the narrative as her being scared of the guy hurting her mom like her dad did BUT whenever Haylah mentioned him she only talked about how he had a beard and didn't wear socks and how that was gross and must mean he's a serial killer (she legit said that he had a "serial killer beard" like what the fuck does that mean?). She gets angry at her mom because she "doesn't know this guy", completely ignoring the fact that her mom has known him for over a year and he's actually a super nice guy and Haylah is actually the one not putting in effort to get to know him. Seriously, when it comes to this situation her 4 year old brother was more mature. I've already ranted enough so I'm not going to say much more but we haven't even touched upon how badly Haylah treated her friends, completely based on this alternate reality she made up in her brain. Honestly, it was like when people get made at someone for what they did in their dreams. We also haven't touched on the fact that Leo manipulated Haylah and was just overall terrible and the book still ends with them being friends and the eventual love interest we get for our main character is a guy who has lowkey bullied her the entire time they've known each other, but it's alright because he secretly always liked her and just didn't know how to express it. Lastly, this book's worst offense was not being funny in the slightest. I know stand-up is all about the delivery but they kept saying Leo's set was only good because of Haylah's writing so according to the book delivery means nothing so I'm going to review this like it's nothing (even thogh that's complete bullshit) and absolutely NONE of her jokes or inner monologue made me laugh at all. Some of her jokes even just felt a bitter, rather than a joke. Again, actual delivery makes a HUGE difference but the book ignored that fact so I did the same.

Pretty Funny for a Girl

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