The Book Review Club: Girlfriend Material

As you may recall, I reviewed Melissa Kantor’s The Breakup Bible for my first book review for Barrie Summy’s “The Book Review Club.” I loved this book so much I had to get Melissa Kantor’s next book Girlfriend Material. Here’s the blurb, courtesy of amazon.com:

If Kate were Lady Brett Ashley, the devastating heroine of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, she’d spend her summers careering around the Riviera in her coupe, breaking hearts by the dozen–because why not? In reality, Kate’s never even had a boyfriend, and she’ll be spending the summer abetting her mom’s lame ploy to make her dad jealous: running off to Cape Cod and crashing at the seaside home of her wealthy friends, the Cooper-Melnicks. To add to the shame, the Cooper-Melnicks’ gorgeous daughter Sarah is a bit like Lady Brett, and she seems less than thrilled to hang out with her new houseguest. Any dreams Kate once had of a perfect summer are ruined.

That is, until Sarah’s cute, witty friend Adam starts drawing Kate into the fold–and seems intrigued. With Adam around, Kate feels like she just might have a bit of heartbreaker potential after all. But when a breezy summer romance quickly grows more complicated can Kate keep pretending her relationship with Adam is just a carefree fling? Or will she take the risk and tell him her real feelings? Suddenly Kate is asking herself a question she never thought she’d stoop to: Is she girlfriend material?

As usual, Melissa Kantor captures teen-age anst in such a way that I, as an adult, can totally relate. So much so, it’s almost painful to relieve some of those feelings – of having to answer to parents, of not being in control of your own life – as much as any adult is in control of their life, that is, being hung up on a guy who seems too smooth to be true, and forced to be with a peer who treats you as if you’re not quite good enough.

Location in a book is very important to me, so, naturally, as a beach lover, I enjoyed the Cape Cod setting, and was so happy the book had little to do with the character’s home town in Utah. 🙂

Melissa Kantor, being a high school English teacher, must have more inside information than I do regarding what teens are doing today, but I do question some of the insights that a teen is supposed to have. I hate to say anything negative, but in some young adult books I’ve read, and this one included, it feels a bit too much like author intrusion, imparting the author’s life experience into the life of the teen character. But, then, it could just be me.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book and Melissa Kantor is a master at weaving plot elements together for the perfect ending to a book.