Title: Who's That Girl
Author: Blair Thornburgh
Format: Hardcover
Rating: 3 Stars
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Junior Nattie McCullough
is totally OK with her place in life: Latin whiz. Member of the
school’s gay-straight alliance. Joni Mitchell superfan.
Seventeen-year-old who has never been kissed. So when last summer’s
crush and her former classmate—Young Lungs lead singer Sebastian
Delacroix—comes back to town with his new hit single “Natalie,” she
can’t bring herself to believe it could possibly be about her…could it?
As
Nattie sorts through the evidence (the lyrics, Sebastian’s elusive text
messages, and their brief romantic encounter last year), the song’s
popularity skyrockets, and everyone starts speculating about “Natalie’s”
identity. If that wasn’t mortifying enough, Nattie runs into another
problem: her confusing, flirtation-packed feelings for her good friend
Zach. With her once-average life upended, Nattie is determined to figure
out once and for all if her short-lived past with Sebastian was
something love songs are made of—or just a one-hit wonder.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, I was intrigued by the description of this book, and the cover looks pretty cool, too. This was a book I really wanted to Love, but ended up just liking instead.
The book is about a girl who has recently discovered that her crush wrote a song about her for his band, The Young Lungs. The song explodes and suddenly everyone knows who Natalie is. There's some love, and a lot of planning for their LGBTQIA group dance as well - so you know, fun! (Sorry, I am not being sarcastic, I love that there is a ton of LGBT+ rep in this book.)
Things I liked about this book:
1. Zach West, AKA, Zach the Anarchist, has 2 moms!
2. The LGBT community is treated as totally normal in this book (which you would think would happen all the time, but it doesn't!) Also, there are discussions about how certain people and activities (like homecoming dances) are still very heteronormative.
Things I Didn't Really Care For:
1. Where were Zach's Parents in the entire novel?! Seriously, I know he's just a secondary character, but you would think we would have met his parents at least ONCE since he and Nattie hang out at his house every week baking cookies?!
2. The characters were not as well developed as they could have been. They felt one dimensional. This could have been because Nattie was the main focus of attention. I wouldn't expect the secondary characters to be the primary focus in a book, but the fact that even their conversations and lives all seemed to revolve around Nattie made it hard to get to know them, or to develop them. Plus, they were too fucking happy all the time. Has the author ever met a teenager, or even another human?! Nobody is that happy all the damn time.
3. The "crush" between Nattie and Sebastian - how could they possibly have had a thing for each other when they never spent any time together and they only interacted with each other on Pixtagram?! Seriously, they saw each other in person TWICE. All their other communication was done over the internet and it was very surface interaction. There is no way they could have actually liked each other. It would have purely been for looks. (Which means, yes Nattie, the song was just for attention and didn't really mean anything.)
There just wasn't enough story or character development here to really make me care about this book. If you are looking for something light without a whole lot of depth, then this book will be a good fit. Otherwise, move along.
