I had the pleasure of meeting author Beth Garrod at a Scholastic blogger event earlier this year where she spoke about her then upcoming novel Super Awkward. Approaching it from the perspective of being a "super awkward author", she was absolutely hilarious and so needless to say I was super keen to get my hands on her book after that.
Super Awkward focuses on teenager Bella Fisher who has all the problems any other girl her age has – school, friends, boyfriends – with the added issue that she is super awkward and so she always ends up in the most embarrassing situations possible. This is especially evident when it comes to the boy part of the teen problems...
Of course Bella is wearing a giant arrow made out of cereal boxes (representing none other than One Direction) when she happens upon a hot boy. And it only goes downhill from there. Quite literally, when Bella falls on top of said boy. And that isn't even the worst thing that happens to her in the book, trust me.
The best part of this novel was Beth Garrod's hilarious writing style and the crazy situations she put her main protagonist in. This is one of those books that has a lol-per-page and if you're in the mood for something to cheer you up during these dark days, then Super Awkward can definitely help you with that.
However, while Beth's writing was fab, I found the storyline less interesting than I'd expected. Perhaps I'm too old to appreciate it fully (the protagonist is a teenager after all and I'm in my 30s, eek!) but I quickly got bored of her romance woes. Furthermore, a lot of Bella's actions, while landing her in funny situations, were pretty stupid on her part and they became quite predictable after a while.
That isn't to say that I didn't enjoy any it because I did really like Bella's friends and her sister Jo, but for the most part there wasn't too much substance to Bella's own storyline and I could take or leave the romance, of which there was a heavy focus within the book. The one exception was Bella's resolution within the previous to last chapter, which was inspired and cracked me up a lot. She really went up a notch in my estimation after that.
Super Awkward is super funny at times but also somewhat immature and superficial. If you love cheesy and predictable rom coms then you'll probably fall head over heels in love with Bella and Zac, but unfortunately it didn't quite work for me.
Many thanks to the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.
Super Awkward is published by Scholastic and you can buy your copy from Foyles or your own preferred retailer.
Connect with the author
Twitter: @bethg
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