Geek Girl by Holly Smale

About the book

Geek Girl is the debut novel by Holly Smale. The book was published on 28^th February by Harper Collins Children’s Books. Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a copy for review.

Synopsis (Taken from Goodreads.com)

Harriet Manners knows a lot of things. She knows that a cat has 32 muscles in each ear, a "jiffy" lasts 1/100th of a second, and the average person laughs 15 times per day. What she isn't quite so sure about is why nobody at school seems to like her very much. So when she's spotted by a top model agent, Harriet grabs the chance to reinvent herself. Even if it means stealing her Best Friend's dream, incurring the wrath of her arch enemy Alexa, and repeatedly humiliating herself in front of the impossibly handsome supermodel Nick. Even if it means lying to the people she loves.

As Harriet veers from one couture disaster to the next with the help of her overly enthusiastic father and her uber-geeky stalker, Toby, she begins to realise that the world of fashion doesn't seem to like her any more than the real world did.

And as her old life starts to fall apart, the question is: will Harriet be able to transform herself before she ruins everything?

What I thought

As soon as I heard about Geek Girl, I knew it was a book for me! I couldn’t wait to read it.

Holly Smale tells the story of Harriet Manners, a girl who is not ashamed at all to be a geek. In fact, Harriet couldn’t be happier about her geek status. She isn’t popular nor does she want to be. Harriet is content with her one and only friend and not so content with her weird stalker who is also a geek. However, she would very much like to stop people making jokes about her and thinking that being a geek is a bad thing. Harriet’s voice was a fantastic way to narrate this story. She’s such a strong character with such strong opinions about things.

When Harriet is ‘spotted’ at The Clothes Show, her life changes completely. Harriet never wanted to be a model, that’s her best friend’s dream, and she definitely never thought she had the look for it. Seeing Harriet thrown into the world of modelling was hilarious as she has barely any social skills and dresses nothing like anything in the fashion magazines. However, Harriet believes that trying modelling will stop people from making jokes about her. I loved seeing how Harriet coped with all of the new things going on in her life and the new people she had to meet.

What really made this book for me was Harriet’s individuality. At such a time when peer pressure can completely change a person, Harriet refuses to be anything but herself. I found her to be extremely brave when voicing her opinions and not wanting to do certain things, especially when these things concerned the modelling world. It was great to see a character being completely themselves the whole way throughout the book, no matter what happened.

Although the modelling/ geek aspects of this book were great, there was more to it as well. Harriet’s new life means than people get hurt along the way. Lies are told, people are deceived and all kinds of crazy things happen. It was really interesting to see the friendship between Harriet and Nat change over the course of the book. Nat has always wanted to be a model so you can imagine how she feels about Harriet being spotted instead of her. I liked Nat as a character though and felt that she was justified in all of her decisions and reactions.

Overall, Geek Girl is an utterly fabulous read full of interesting characters, fun situations and a sweet building romance!