Smart Girls Get What They Want

 

by Sarah Strohmeyer

 

Summary:
Gigi, Bea, and Neerja are best friends and total overachievers. Even if they aren't the most popular girls in school, they aren't too worried. They know their real lives will begin once they get to their Ivy League colleges. There will be ivy, and there will be cute guys in the libraries (hopefully with English accents)! But when an unexpected event shows them they're missing out on the full high school experience, it's time to come out of the honors lounge and into the spotlight. They make a pact: They will each take on their greatest challenge—and they will totally rock it.

Gigi decides to run for student rep, but she'll have to get over her fear of public speaking—and go head-to-head with gorgeous California Will. Bea used to be one of the best skiers around, until she was derailed. It could be time for her to take the plunge again. And Neerja loves the drama club but has always stayed behind the scenes—until now.

My Rating: 3.5 /5 Stars

My Review:
I was looking for something light hearted, fun and contemporary to read. A couple of my GR friends really liked this book, the blurb sounded fluffy and fun, hence I decided to go with it. I admit that I didn't expect to be totally blown away any it. And for the first 40% or so I wasn't. It took nearly half the book for me to really get into it. But the second half of the book was extremely good.

The entire book is very witty and I did really grow to like Gigi. Even if I found her extremely narrow minded and opinionated in the beginning. She is quirky and clever, but the thing that actually holds her back is her very shallow view of others. She labels people according to what they do and where the hang out and only see that label not even bothering to get to know them. During the story she gets to know quite a few of those kids and I think learns that there is more to people that what the seem at first glance.
She also is a very loyal loving and caring friend.
I think this little exchange sort of makes my point:
“Maybe this project wasn’t such a bad idea. You’re a lot more intelligent than you seem, Mike.”
Crap. That came out wrong.
“I mean…”
He smiled, amused. “You know, I don’t get you, Einstein. Just when I think you’re really smart, you say something really stupid.”

Her two besties Neerja and Bea are the coolest and I really loved their little *side*love stories as well. They and all the other support charters are awesome. In fact I do think that Strohmeyer created fabulous multidimensional characters who have more to them than then the stereotypical label on the box seems to offer.

My favorite character though is Mike. While he is into sports, he isn't your usual jock, he is intelligent and a great friend. As he he says about himself, he picks up things but also he has actually quite a lot of insight. I really enjoyed getting to know him (through Gigi). The way he kept on surprising her and the fact that he unlike her is more clued up about people and also more open towards them. Plus i loved that he called her Einstein.And he has a great sense of humor. Throughout the book there were very sweet moments with him, and sigh…. sqeeeee !(this one is for you, katy).. i just adored them (and him)
this is one of my favorite Mike moment.
Mike said, “I hate to tell you this, but most guys our age are jerks.”
This was not what I wanted to hear.
“I mean, it’s not like we choose to be jerks. We don’t wake up in the morning and say, ‘You know, I think I’ll be a jerk today.’ It’s just, there’s so much going on with us. So much in our heads that we do one thing and mean another and vice versa.” He turned to me. “You understand.”

There were also a few inconstancies. Like her mother MID phd who is in Zurich (she really should be in geneva is she is splitting atoms) or I didn't think that Avogadro's number was such a complicated high chemistry thingy. But I think I might have picked up on those because i did chemistry in Switzerland?

The thing though that surprised me most about Smart Girls get what they want? It stayed with me for days and made me think about the characters and the way we see people. It made me ponder over the fact that a novel that seem light und fluffy had much more depth than expected.I ended up finding out about the US school system, to understand the characters in the book better. Thought about pressures and trial kids at the age go through. And I decided to read a few more High School YA's as a sort of a research in to the genre.