Blogger Girl, by Meredith Schorr

Genre: Chick Lit / Romance

Overall: **** 4 out of 5 stars

Legal secretary and popular Chick Lit blogger Kimberly Long is seriously crushing on a junior associate at the law firm where she works.  She’s also facing the challenge of reading and reviewing the debut novel of the girl who made her high school years miserable.

I did not receive a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.  I’ve heard/read some buzz about it on Facebook and Twitter (which the heroine of the book would probably get a kick out of) and I paid my own money for it.  Yesterday, needing something to read, I went to my trusty book box (where I have slips of paper listing all of the books I own but have not read yet) and pulled a title out.  Blogger Girl!  Yay!  I was excited because I’ve been wanting to read it for a while.  I started it last night and finished it about a half hour ago.  It was an easy, breezy read (to take a phrase from the book itself).

*Spoilers below*

The opening of the book introduces us to Kim and her crush on the very likeable, very cute Nicholas Strong.  Up until a night of drinks with office pals, Nicholas has never seemed to know she existed, but once Kim’s boss tells N. about K.’s book review blog, suddenly N. is finding more and more opportunities to talk to her.

K’s best friend, Bridget, is always around for support, especially when N. asks K. to meet him for drinks after her big 10-year high school reunion.  Unfortunately, the reunion also means a run-in with Hannah, who did her best to make high school a nightmare for K & B and who is now breathing down K’s back to get a favorable review of her to-be-released debut novel.

As Kim navigates her feelings/relationship with Nicholas and her jealousy and hatred for Hannah, she begins to realize that the thing she really wants most is to write a novel herself.

Character Development: ***** 5 out of 5 stars.  Kim was insanely relatable and likeable.  Nicholas is a dream, without being cliche.  I love that Schorr made him a short, but still hot guy.  Short guys are so underrated.  His sudden interest in Kim at the beginning felt slightly forced, but once their banter was established, I was all in.  They had the cutest conversations that always seemed realistic for where they were at in their relationship.  The supporting characters were all well-developed as well.  I feel like Schorr spent the most time on Hannah, but Erin (Kim’s sister) had a full personality despite only being used for phone call scenes, and Kim’s two best friends (Bridget and Caroline) were distinct from each other with their own backstories and subplots (Caroline didn’t really have a subplot, but it was shown that she had a life outside of the events of the book, which is not always easy to do).

I do wish that Schorr hadn’t gone the route of two mean girls as Kim’s adversaries.  Hannah was needed and great, but Daneen seemed unnecessary.  I get why she was included – to assist in sparking the fight between K. and N. in the middle of the book, but I feel her role could have just as easily been male.  I don’t like that women always assume that other women are their enemies.

Plot: **** 4 out of 5 stars.  The pacing is good and the character development has a lot to do with that.  Schorr relies on some cliches – the big misunderstanding leading to a breakup, the mean girls mentioned above – but I enjoyed the ebb and flow of the story, so it didn’t bother me too much.  After all, the entire book was a little meta and probably would have felt awkward if those cliches hadn’t been included.

Writing Style/ Voice of the Author: **** 3.5 out of 5 stars.  This was really easy to read, but sometimes the meta-ness worked against the author instead of for her.  The description of Hannah’s book, which Kim is reluctant to admit sounds interesting, did not sound interesting at all.  The repetition of certain phrases and descriptions became distracting – I found myself wanting to tally how many times Kim and her friends giggled.  Were they incapable of laughing?  Did it have to be a giggle?  But – the dialogue was solid and the author never went off on descriptive tangents that take a reader out of the scene, and her characters are so well done, it makes up for any defects.

Favorite Lines:

He put his mouth to the harmonica, played a few notes, and started singing to the tune of the chorus of Penny Lane by The Beatles.  ‘Kimmie Long was in my pants and it felt nice.‘

*

Nicholas rubbed his lips.  “Isn’t it supposed to be first comes date, then comes sex?  We had sex before the date.”

“I think the correct words to that ditty are ‘first comes love then comes marriage.’  But lots of people get that order wrong too.”

*

The last two lines – I’m not going to write them here, because I don’t want to deprive you of the humor when you read them for yourselves.  They are just the perfect conclusion to a running joke throughout the book and you won’t find them funny on their own.