BOOK REVIEW: Adorkable by Sarra Manning

 Title: Adorkable

Author: Sarra Manning

Pages:385

Publisher: Atom

Release Date: 24th May 2012  

Tagline: 'Love, hate, whatever'

Source: For review (I was lucky enough to get the chance to review this book because I am an Atomics reviewer! Thanks to Team Atom for sending me this review copy of Adorkable!)

 "Jeane Smith is seventeen and has turned her self-styled dorkiness into an art form, a lifestyle choice and a profitable website and consultancy business. She writes a style column for a Japanese teen magazine and came number seven in The Guardian's 30 People Under 30 Who Are Changing The World. And yet, in spite of the accolades, hundreds of Internet friendships and a cool boyfriend, she feels inexplicably lonely, a situation made infinitely worse when Michael Lee, the most mass-market, popular and predictably all-rounded boy at school tells Jeane of his suspicion that Jeane's boyfriend is secretly seeing his girlfriend. Michael and Jeane have NOTHING in common - she is cool and individual; he is the golden boy in an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt. So why can't she stop talking to him?"

Michael Lee is a typical teenager, and the cliché of perfect. He excels at everything he does, be it playing football or writing essays, he’s good-looking, popular and wears Jack Wills and Abercrombie.

Jeane Smith is anything but typical, and definitely no cliché. She’s strongly opinionated, sarky, a self-confessed dork, head of her own lifestyle brand, Adorkable, and dresses as outlandishly as possible.

Adorkable alternates between Michael’s and Jeane’s perspectives, which meant I really got to know and understand both main characters. I felt that whichever character’s viewpoint I was reading, I really empathised with – for example, at the beginning, when seeing through the eyes of Michael, Jeane really did seem very rude and snarky and not at all likable. However, when I read from Jeane’s perspective, I saw that there was more to her than her abrasive surface and, despite her not-so-nice facade, I actually found myself liking Jeane. 

In fact, you really can’t help but admire Jeane. Aged only 17 and living alone, she is already a massive success with her own brand, Adorkable. She writes columns for teen magazines, speaks regularly at conferences and made the Guardian’s list of ’30 People Under 30 Who Are Changing The World’. This is not the sole reason behind my admiration for her, however. What makes me really admire Jeane is how sure she is of herself. She knows who she is. She knows what she wants. She knows what she believes in and she believes in herself.  Jeane is incredibly quirky and unique, but she’s not afraid to be different. In fact, she relishes in being different! She is so completely her own person and she won’t let anyone or anything get in the way of that. This, I think, is a very admirable quality because most teenage girls are constantly worrying about how they look and what people think of them; I can honestly only think of a maximum of two people I know who are so secure within themselves like Jeane is.

At first, I didn’t particularly like the relationship between Jeane and Michael. It seemed weird to me how they hated each other and the only basis of their relationship was that they liked kissing each other. However, it was very nice to see how their friendship grew and progressed – it was by no means perfect, but then again, in real life nothing is really perfect, is it?

I was expecting Adorkable to be a light-hearted, enjoyable read. It was very light-hearted and funny, but it was actually so much more than that. There are some meaningful messages behind Adorkable that I think teen readers will definitely be able to relate to – for example, it’s okay to be different, and it’s okay to be whoever you want to be.

I loved this book – Sarra Manning has written yet another amazing novel for teens – Adorkable was funny, quirky and totes adorkable!