What do you think?
Rate this book
Kind of a Big Deal
From Shannon Hale, bestselling author of Austenland, comes Kind of a Big Deal: a hilarious, madcap story that will suck you in―literally.
There's nothing worse than peaking in high school. Nobody knows that better than Josie Pie.
She was kind of a big deal―she dropped out of high school to be a star! But the bigger you are, the harder you fall. And Josie fell. Hard. Ouch. Broadway dream: dead.
Meanwhile, her life keeps imploding. Best friend: distant. Boyfriend: busy. Mom: not playing with a full deck? Desperate to escape, Josie gets into reading.
Literally. She reads a book and suddenly she's inside it. And with each book, she’s a different character: a post-apocalyptic heroine, the lead in a YA rom-com, a 17th century wench in a corset.
It’s alarming. But also . . . kind of amazing?
It’s the perfect way to live out her fantasies. Book after book, Josie the failed star finds a new way to shine. But the longer she stays in a story, the harder it becomes to escape.
Will Josie find a story so good that she just stays forever?
There's nothing worse than peaking in high school. Nobody knows that better than Josie Pie.
She was kind of a big deal―she dropped out of high school to be a star! But the bigger you are, the harder you fall. And Josie fell. Hard. Ouch. Broadway dream: dead.
Meanwhile, her life keeps imploding. Best friend: distant. Boyfriend: busy. Mom: not playing with a full deck? Desperate to escape, Josie gets into reading.
Literally. She reads a book and suddenly she's inside it. And with each book, she’s a different character: a post-apocalyptic heroine, the lead in a YA rom-com, a 17th century wench in a corset.
It’s alarming. But also . . . kind of amazing?
It’s the perfect way to live out her fantasies. Book after book, Josie the failed star finds a new way to shine. But the longer she stays in a story, the harder it becomes to escape.
Will Josie find a story so good that she just stays forever?
397 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 25, 2020
270 people are currently reading
9,291 people want to read
About the author
Shannon Hale
133 books13.8k followersShannon Hale is the New York Times best-selling author of six young adult novels: the Newbery Honor book Princess Academy, multiple award winner Book of a Thousand Days, and the highly acclaimed Books of Bayern series. She has written three books for adults, including the upcoming Midnight in Austenland (Jan. 2012), companion book to Austenland. She co-wrote the hit graphic novel Rapunzel's Revenge and its sequel Calamity Jack with husband Dean Hale. They live near Salt Lake City, Utah with their four small children, and their pet, a small, plastic pig.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,172 reviews
Read
March 17, 2021The positive is that I read this quickly, but that’s kind of where the positives end. I’ve read other Shannon Hale books and really loved them but this one was just a miss for me. I think it should have been middle grade. It reads very young despite having an older protagonist. I felt like I never really learned anything about the main character and found what I did learn made her kind of annoying. The jumping between books and stories could’ve been really cool but instead was just jarring and made it especially hard to connect to the story, particularly given the lack of information or opportunity to get to know the main character. I found her situation to be pretty unbelievable, though I guess with suspension of disbelief you may be able to get past it but I just couldn’t. This book just felt like it was trying really hard to be a lot of things and do a lot of things so it just didn’t quite make it with any of them. It was trying to be funny at times but just made the story read like it was for a much younger audience. There’s nothing wrong with that, but with an 18 year old lead it seemed disconnected.
August 28, 2020
ARC provided in exchange for an honest review - thank you!
This book bored me almost to actual tears.
It's all about Josie Pie (not her real name, Pie is the surname of her boyfriend Justin whom she hasn't actually spoken to in like months) who was a big deal back in high school, as she repeatedly informs anyone who'll listen. She dropped out of her last year and tried to make it big on Broadway. The attempt failed big-time, and now she's somehow the live-in nanny to a five-year-old girl in Montana whose mother is a world-travelling consultant. She gets given a stream of books from the hot guy in charge of the local bookshop, but every time she opens them she's somehow sucked into the pages.
❌ The writing is so bad. It's stilted, impersonal, and somehow channels all the tension out of every scene. This is especially noticeable because the book features lots of snippets from 'other books', the ones Josie falls into, which include a YA romance, zombie fic and historical romance. All these EXTREMELY different genres sounded identical to each other. That's understandable - after all, there is in fact only one author behind them - but it wasn't a good look.
❌ Josie is a super annoying character. She does have some personal development throughout the book, but I never clicked with her.
❌ The romance is terrible. All we get told throughout the story is how she's drifting away from Justin and suspects he's cheating on her, but then he shows up out of nowhere at the end of the book and suddenly it's all roses. Sorry, but if you're going to have a romantic subplot, you need to have the hero actually have a page time that's longer than a paragraph. Don't even get me started on the weird, abortive attempt at a love triangle.
❌ The plot itself is completely weird, the ending incomprehensible, and I skim read all of it.
[Blog] - [Bookstagram]
This book bored me almost to actual tears.
It's all about Josie Pie (not her real name, Pie is the surname of her boyfriend Justin whom she hasn't actually spoken to in like months) who was a big deal back in high school, as she repeatedly informs anyone who'll listen. She dropped out of her last year and tried to make it big on Broadway. The attempt failed big-time, and now she's somehow the live-in nanny to a five-year-old girl in Montana whose mother is a world-travelling consultant. She gets given a stream of books from the hot guy in charge of the local bookshop, but every time she opens them she's somehow sucked into the pages.
❌ The writing is so bad. It's stilted, impersonal, and somehow channels all the tension out of every scene. This is especially noticeable because the book features lots of snippets from 'other books', the ones Josie falls into, which include a YA romance, zombie fic and historical romance. All these EXTREMELY different genres sounded identical to each other. That's understandable - after all, there is in fact only one author behind them - but it wasn't a good look.
❌ Josie is a super annoying character. She does have some personal development throughout the book, but I never clicked with her.
❌ The romance is terrible. All we get told throughout the story is how she's drifting away from Justin and suspects he's cheating on her, but then he shows up out of nowhere at the end of the book and suddenly it's all roses. Sorry, but if you're going to have a romantic subplot, you need to have the hero actually have a page time that's longer than a paragraph. Don't even get me started on the weird, abortive attempt at a love triangle.
❌ The plot itself is completely weird, the ending incomprehensible, and I skim read all of it.
[Blog] - [Bookstagram]
July 18, 2020
ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.
I've loved Shannon Hale since I was 9, when I read Princess Academy for the first time and then proceeded to reread it about a million times. Then I read the Books of Bayern and adored those. So when I saw I got approved for this ARC, I kinda freaked out in excitement because I just knew I was going to love it.
...I did not love it...
As quite a few other reviewers have said, this book had a neat idea without the best execution. The best way I can think to describe it is 'messy'. The story at best felt chaotic and underdeveloped, and at worst left me feeling so uninterested I might've died of boredom. The character of Josie Pie is supposed to be unlikable, but there's a fine line between writing a flawed character that people can understand and someone that's insufferable to read about. If I had to hear her say 'I was kind of a big deal' one more time, I was pretty sure I was going to lose it.
On a positive note, I will say that I appreciated how YA this book was. What I mean by that is that this wasn't a book with adult characters masquerading as teenagers. This wasn't Riverdale where all the 15 year olds are actually 28. The characters were teens that oftentimes made horrible decisions and were even worse at communicating. Their problems were actual 18 year old problems and it was refreshing to see that.
I still love Shannon Hale and will read anything else she writes; this was just a big miss for me.
I've loved Shannon Hale since I was 9, when I read Princess Academy for the first time and then proceeded to reread it about a million times. Then I read the Books of Bayern and adored those. So when I saw I got approved for this ARC, I kinda freaked out in excitement because I just knew I was going to love it.
...I did not love it...
As quite a few other reviewers have said, this book had a neat idea without the best execution. The best way I can think to describe it is 'messy'. The story at best felt chaotic and underdeveloped, and at worst left me feeling so uninterested I might've died of boredom. The character of Josie Pie is supposed to be unlikable, but there's a fine line between writing a flawed character that people can understand and someone that's insufferable to read about. If I had to hear her say 'I was kind of a big deal' one more time, I was pretty sure I was going to lose it.
On a positive note, I will say that I appreciated how YA this book was. What I mean by that is that this wasn't a book with adult characters masquerading as teenagers. This wasn't Riverdale where all the 15 year olds are actually 28. The characters were teens that oftentimes made horrible decisions and were even worse at communicating. Their problems were actual 18 year old problems and it was refreshing to see that.
I still love Shannon Hale and will read anything else she writes; this was just a big miss for me.
September 7, 2021
I've been a fan of Shannon Hale for years, ever since reading The Goose Girl and Princess Academy, not to mention the romantic comedy Austenland, so I try to check out almost everything she writes. But I had some trouble getting into this one at first and set it aside for about a year. It's different - low fantasy rather than high - and the main character is very lost at first. Once I finally decided to just read it, though, I thought it was excellent!
Josie is a high school senior, an excellent singer who dropped out of school to pursue her big dream of being on Broadway. It didn't work out. She ended up staying in New York several months to try to make it work, going deep into credit card debt and ashamed of where she's ended up. Now she's a nanny for a 4 or 5 year old girl in Missoula, Montana, whose divorced mom travels most of the time, and trying to pay back her debt without her mother finding out.
An intriguing bookseller loans Josie a few books and she ends up getting lost in these stories ... literally: sinking into a dream world where she's the main character. It's more fun and fulfilling than her real life. And then there's Josie's struggles to figure out where her relationships are at with her high school boyfriend and her queer best friend. What to do?
Josie's angst and poor choices were a little much for me at first (the reason I set this book aside for months) but once the plot gets rolling it's fascinating, an unusual low fantasy novel with some really great insights into life and friendship. Recommended for people who like YA coming-of-age novels with a touch of fantasy.
Full review to come! Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.
Josie is a high school senior, an excellent singer who dropped out of school to pursue her big dream of being on Broadway. It didn't work out. She ended up staying in New York several months to try to make it work, going deep into credit card debt and ashamed of where she's ended up. Now she's a nanny for a 4 or 5 year old girl in Missoula, Montana, whose divorced mom travels most of the time, and trying to pay back her debt without her mother finding out.
An intriguing bookseller loans Josie a few books and she ends up getting lost in these stories ... literally: sinking into a dream world where she's the main character. It's more fun and fulfilling than her real life. And then there's Josie's struggles to figure out where her relationships are at with her high school boyfriend and her queer best friend. What to do?
Josie's angst and poor choices were a little much for me at first (the reason I set this book aside for months) but once the plot gets rolling it's fascinating, an unusual low fantasy novel with some really great insights into life and friendship. Recommended for people who like YA coming-of-age novels with a touch of fantasy.
Full review to come! Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.
Read
August 15, 2020This will be spoilery.
One thing I've noticed about Shannon Hale is that she strikes out in different directions with her books, instead of writing the same winning story over and over, with slightly differing trappings.
In this latest novel, teenage Josie Pie was a high school drama star who left school for a one-shot audition on Broadway, blew it, and ended up in Montana as a live-in nanny for a small girl. We never learn how anyone in their right mind would hire a totally inexperienced teen to be a live-in nanny, and it could be argued that that's really not what the story is about, but this kind of underscores what I felt went wrong here: there was a short story, or at most a novelette, worth of material stretched out into a novel, peopled with one-dimensional characters who played spear carriers to Josie's quest for stardom.
If this had been a short story, I would have loved it to pieces: early on, Josie visits a bookstore, and at the park, while her charge is playing, she falls into a book and finds herself in the story world of a historical romance complete with thieves and pirates. This section was absolutely hilarious--I kept laughing out loud, though I kept worrying about how long she was gone, leaving a small child effectively alone in a public park. But when Josie fell back into herself only two minutes later, I breathed with relief and looked forward to her growing up and getting on with her life . . .
To find the same experience repeated again, and again, the only substantive difference the genre of the story she falls into. And when Josie returns from each story world, she's right back to bemoaning her lost chance at stardom, and her non-communicating boyfriend, who she's convinced is two-timing her, and her bestie who is distancing her. (Can we blame her?)
I ended up putting the book down more and more frequently in favor of something else, until days turned into weeks, then months. When I returned to it at last, it was more with determination to get it finished than with pleasurable anticipation. By then the problems outweighed the pleasures, in spite of it being delightful on the sentence level: there did not seem to be enough story there to carry an entire novel.
Josie is whiny and self-absorbed, and though she appears to learn some home truths at the end, they felt a bit sermony, handed to her by the narrative voice instead of truly earned. The boyfriend shows up at last, true and blue for a happy ending, but still everything is all about her--we don't know him as a character any more than we did at the start. The nanny job is window dressing until we're told that Josie adores the kid at the end, but again it felt like the authorial hand firmly pushing us toward a rosy ending.
This book is aimed at a young audience, who might find the story charming in its present form. Hale's writing certainly invites enjoyment. It's the plot and the character development that failed for me. I reached the happy ending feeling mostly relief that at last it was done.
Copy provided by NetGalley
One thing I've noticed about Shannon Hale is that she strikes out in different directions with her books, instead of writing the same winning story over and over, with slightly differing trappings.
In this latest novel, teenage Josie Pie was a high school drama star who left school for a one-shot audition on Broadway, blew it, and ended up in Montana as a live-in nanny for a small girl. We never learn how anyone in their right mind would hire a totally inexperienced teen to be a live-in nanny, and it could be argued that that's really not what the story is about, but this kind of underscores what I felt went wrong here: there was a short story, or at most a novelette, worth of material stretched out into a novel, peopled with one-dimensional characters who played spear carriers to Josie's quest for stardom.
If this had been a short story, I would have loved it to pieces: early on, Josie visits a bookstore, and at the park, while her charge is playing, she falls into a book and finds herself in the story world of a historical romance complete with thieves and pirates. This section was absolutely hilarious--I kept laughing out loud, though I kept worrying about how long she was gone, leaving a small child effectively alone in a public park. But when Josie fell back into herself only two minutes later, I breathed with relief and looked forward to her growing up and getting on with her life . . .
To find the same experience repeated again, and again, the only substantive difference the genre of the story she falls into. And when Josie returns from each story world, she's right back to bemoaning her lost chance at stardom, and her non-communicating boyfriend, who she's convinced is two-timing her, and her bestie who is distancing her. (Can we blame her?)
I ended up putting the book down more and more frequently in favor of something else, until days turned into weeks, then months. When I returned to it at last, it was more with determination to get it finished than with pleasurable anticipation. By then the problems outweighed the pleasures, in spite of it being delightful on the sentence level: there did not seem to be enough story there to carry an entire novel.
Josie is whiny and self-absorbed, and though she appears to learn some home truths at the end, they felt a bit sermony, handed to her by the narrative voice instead of truly earned. The boyfriend shows up at last, true and blue for a happy ending, but still everything is all about her--we don't know him as a character any more than we did at the start. The nanny job is window dressing until we're told that Josie adores the kid at the end, but again it felt like the authorial hand firmly pushing us toward a rosy ending.
This book is aimed at a young audience, who might find the story charming in its present form. Hale's writing certainly invites enjoyment. It's the plot and the character development that failed for me. I reached the happy ending feeling mostly relief that at last it was done.
Copy provided by NetGalley
January 31, 2021
"We tend to think of life as all linear," Nina went on, "as if each moment, each year, has to be better than the last, and if it's not, we failed. But we're all of it at the same time. And then some. So be patient with yourself, Josie. Don't judge yourself by any one moment. Allow yourself room to change."
representation: Greek MC, gay minor character, trans side character, OCD.
[trigger warnings are listed at the bottom of this review and may contain spoilers]
★★★★★
Not me reading the lowest rated book on my tbr and giving it 5 stars 👀
But for real, I wouldn't recommend this to everyone and I know the only reason I adored this was because I had a huge personal connection to the main character. I feel kinda like I AM her in a way because we've been through very similar things (she peaked in high school and i peaked in high school, she was a theatre kid and i was a theatre kid, etc.) And yes, this book was ABSURD, but I thought it was really fun! I'm just as shocked as you are, friends 🤣
trigger warnings: slut-shaming, brief mention of divorce due to infidelity and an alcoholic parent, loooots of stereotyping, zombies, gore, violence, severe bullying and physical abuse due to transphobia, absent parents.
representation: Greek MC, gay minor character, trans side character, OCD.
[trigger warnings are listed at the bottom of this review and may contain spoilers]
★★★★★
Not me reading the lowest rated book on my tbr and giving it 5 stars 👀
But for real, I wouldn't recommend this to everyone and I know the only reason I adored this was because I had a huge personal connection to the main character. I feel kinda like I AM her in a way because we've been through very similar things (she peaked in high school and i peaked in high school, she was a theatre kid and i was a theatre kid, etc.) And yes, this book was ABSURD, but I thought it was really fun! I'm just as shocked as you are, friends 🤣
trigger warnings: slut-shaming, brief mention of divorce due to infidelity and an alcoholic parent, loooots of stereotyping, zombies, gore, violence, severe bullying and physical abuse due to transphobia, absent parents.
July 6, 2020
I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Ever start a book and know it just isn’t for you? That was Kind of a Big Deal for me. I was drawn to the book due to the concept of the main character, 17 year-old Josie “Pie” Sergakis jumping into actual books and becoming part of the story. Who hasn’t wanted to do that? I certainly loved it in Austenland. But unfortunately, no matter what role in any story Josie is playing, she’s still completely and utterly unlikable--and no more so than in the reality of her own, convoluted story with a depressing message.
Josie, as she repeatedly tells herself and literally anyone who will listen, was “kind of a big deal” in high school. There, she was the popular star of all the musical productions, beloved by all. Because apparently in some universes, theater kids are popular and get stopped for autographs. They also get encouraged to dropout of high school by their teachers in order to audition for Broadway, which you know, isn’t competitive or anything.
That is what exactly happens to Josie. She finds herself with no job--let alone a starring role on Broadway, ample credit card debt, and no return in New York City, at age 17, nonetheless. Somehow, with no experience, she’s hired as a nanny to a five-year-old girl and moves to Missoula, Montana to work there in the hopes of paying off her debts. There, she’s miserable, as no one but her knows what a star she was in high school, and her best friend and her boyfriend have seemingly moved on with their lives that are actually going somewhere reasonable, like college.
Books soon become Josie’s only method to escape, as she can’t even get a role in community theater. After a visit to the local bookstore, she finds herself living out a romance novel. But what I hated the most was that every time she jumps into a book, be it romance, dystopian, or historical fiction--she always ends up singing the Spice Girls to exit? I’m sure it had something to do with female empowerment, but it was just baffling, random, and irritating.
As was the fact that her best friend, a freshman in college, manages to buy a plane ticket out to see her for one night, just to leave. How do these kids have all this expendable income and freedom to do whatever they want without anyone to whom to answer? But it takes the entirety of the book for Josie to realize not only is she a crappy friend, who has no idea what’s going on in her friend’s life, but also that there’s more to life than her and her freaking high school experience. Frankly, if she loved school so much, the place she willingly left to follow her dreams and spends 99% of the book longing for, why not just go back? Because she couldn’t stand her classmates and other hometown people knowing that she didn’t make it on Broadway. I’d say that surely a young woman with such determination has more than just her musical aspirations going for her? But Josie really doesn’t. Literally all there is to Josie is high school and singing.
Even her boyfriend is more of a groupie than a support system. For most of Kind of a Big Deal we are treated to flashbacks of how much he supposedly used to care for Josie, but really just focused on how he looked at her like she was a star and how because of him, she felt like one. We are told how they were the king and queen of high school. He’s noticeably absent from the entire novel, except for in Josie’s book-hopping fantasies where he's more fictional character than her actual boyfriend, and it’s hinted that he’s cheating on her. But lo and behold, he shows up at the very last minute of Kind of a Big Deal and the two laugh about her failed career and everything’s just hunky dory!
After reading Kind of a Big Deal I can honestly say that I think the biggest deal of the novel was not Josie or her failed Broadway career, but the profound lack of parenting. Why did Josie’s mother let her be influenced by a drama teacher to the point that she let her daughter dropout of school to move to the city to predictably have her dreams crushed? It’s a miracle that the worst thing that happened to Josie was that she ended up with credit card debt. Just wanting her male drama teacher, who believed in her only to ditch her just like her actual father, to be her real father screamed, young, impressionable and dangerous to me. It is beyond me that no one preyed upon her, a girl from a small town in New York City who was desperate enough to yell, “I can do anything!” at several auditions.
Josie had absolutely no good judgement whatsoever, which she demonstrates by her complete lack of care for anyone but herself, and the kid for whom she nannies, Mia. Plus, I think she really only cared for Mia, because she saw the kid as herself as a young girl--no parents who cared, an absentee father, etc. It would have been so easy for someone to take advantage of Josie. I was also horrified that at the end of the novel, her mother told her not to come home, but to pay off her debt, give up on her Broadway dream, and to become like, a “hairdresser” or something. Um, what? No “finish your high school education?!” No, “if musicals and drama means so much to you pursue a higher education after high school that might better equip you for that?”
For the life of me, I have no idea what the moral of this story was--give up your dreams? Settle for a mediocre existence? Don’t go back to high school? All I know after making it through this novel, was >that Josie was most definitely Not. A. Big. Deal. And apparently, neither were her dreams, since she had no problem giving them up when she wasn’t some teenage prodigy. I feel that it would have made more sense if Josie discovered a love of writing musicals or screenplays through all the reading/novel-hopping she did in this story, or some other career that was musical-adjacent that she could hope to accomplish, but instead, she just completely gives up and the novel leaves her future up in the air, stating maybe she’ll continue being a nanny or get her GED. Regardless, it seems clear that Josie will be taking the easy route of quitting her dreams and staying with her high school boyfriend, even though Kind of a Big Deal tells readers multiple times that high school sweethearts never last.
Besides having no idea what the purpose of this novel was, I am not really sure who the intended audience for Kind of a Big Deal was. As someone who experienced high school for herself, I found Josie’s experience there completely unbelievable--as was her experience in every single novel she jumped into, her dating life, her friendships, and literally every other facet of her existence. The author seems horribly out of touch. I cringed at the things Josie said and did in her real life--even though I think they’re supposed to be funny or relatable--or the things she fantasized about in her novel hopping.
I would say this novel is more for middle graders who haven’t yet experienced high school and maybe enjoy musicals, but I would hesitate to recommend this to any young reader due to its lack of any kind of a good message. Furthermore, Kind of a Big Deal is written so simplistically that I feel it would actually be better suited for a kid in elementary school, but again the message of giving up your dreams makes that an iffy recommendation to make. Ultimately, if you have a young reader who is really into musicals and singing, they may absolutely love this novel. But get ready to have Kind of a Big discussion about dreams and realistic expectations afterwards.
Bloggingwithdragons.com
My Book Review Policy
Ever start a book and know it just isn’t for you? That was Kind of a Big Deal for me. I was drawn to the book due to the concept of the main character, 17 year-old Josie “Pie” Sergakis jumping into actual books and becoming part of the story. Who hasn’t wanted to do that? I certainly loved it in Austenland. But unfortunately, no matter what role in any story Josie is playing, she’s still completely and utterly unlikable--and no more so than in the reality of her own, convoluted story with a depressing message.
Sometimes younger students stopped Josie in the halls to ask for her autograph. ‘In a few years, this signature is going to be worth a lot of money,’ said a freshman girl with a sincere smile. Josie laughed the laugh of a confident upperclassman and thought, Yeah, it probably will be.”
Josie, as she repeatedly tells herself and literally anyone who will listen, was “kind of a big deal” in high school. There, she was the popular star of all the musical productions, beloved by all. Because apparently in some universes, theater kids are popular and get stopped for autographs. They also get encouraged to dropout of high school by their teachers in order to audition for Broadway, which you know, isn’t competitive or anything.
A surge of anger tingled in her toes and rushed up through her middle, into her face bringing both a hot flush to her cheeks and a feeling that, if she were a cartoon, her eyes would be blazing red. Don’t they know who I am? Came the sincere but also instantly ridiculous thought. No, Josie Pie, they don’t know who you are, because you aren’t Millennial High School’s precious rising star Josie Sergakis here. Or anywhere, anymore.”
That is what exactly happens to Josie. She finds herself with no job--let alone a starring role on Broadway, ample credit card debt, and no return in New York City, at age 17, nonetheless. Somehow, with no experience, she’s hired as a nanny to a five-year-old girl and moves to Missoula, Montana to work there in the hopes of paying off her debts. There, she’s miserable, as no one but her knows what a star she was in high school, and her best friend and her boyfriend have seemingly moved on with their lives that are actually going somewhere reasonable, like college.
“There is nothing worse than peaking in high school. And no one knew that better than Josie Pie. Eighteen years old and already a flop.”
Books soon become Josie’s only method to escape, as she can’t even get a role in community theater. After a visit to the local bookstore, she finds herself living out a romance novel. But what I hated the most was that every time she jumps into a book, be it romance, dystopian, or historical fiction--she always ends up singing the Spice Girls to exit? I’m sure it had something to do with female empowerment, but it was just baffling, random, and irritating.
As was the fact that her best friend, a freshman in college, manages to buy a plane ticket out to see her for one night, just to leave. How do these kids have all this expendable income and freedom to do whatever they want without anyone to whom to answer? But it takes the entirety of the book for Josie to realize not only is she a crappy friend, who has no idea what’s going on in her friend’s life, but also that there’s more to life than her and her freaking high school experience. Frankly, if she loved school so much, the place she willingly left to follow her dreams and spends 99% of the book longing for, why not just go back? Because she couldn’t stand her classmates and other hometown people knowing that she didn’t make it on Broadway. I’d say that surely a young woman with such determination has more than just her musical aspirations going for her? But Josie really doesn’t. Literally all there is to Josie is high school and singing.
“If she stayed far away, perhaps Justin wouldn’t notice what she really was. Perhaps he’d still see her the way he had that night after the school talent show. As a star.”
Even her boyfriend is more of a groupie than a support system. For most of Kind of a Big Deal we are treated to flashbacks of how much he supposedly used to care for Josie, but really just focused on how he looked at her like she was a star and how because of him, she felt like one. We are told how they were the king and queen of high school. He’s noticeably absent from the entire novel, except for in Josie’s book-hopping fantasies where he's more fictional character than her actual boyfriend, and it’s hinted that he’s cheating on her. But lo and behold, he shows up at the very last minute of Kind of a Big Deal and the two laugh about her failed career and everything’s just hunky dory!
After reading Kind of a Big Deal I can honestly say that I think the biggest deal of the novel was not Josie or her failed Broadway career, but the profound lack of parenting. Why did Josie’s mother let her be influenced by a drama teacher to the point that she let her daughter dropout of school to move to the city to predictably have her dreams crushed? It’s a miracle that the worst thing that happened to Josie was that she ended up with credit card debt. Just wanting her male drama teacher, who believed in her only to ditch her just like her actual father, to be her real father screamed, young, impressionable and dangerous to me. It is beyond me that no one preyed upon her, a girl from a small town in New York City who was desperate enough to yell, “I can do anything!” at several auditions.
Josie had absolutely no good judgement whatsoever, which she demonstrates by her complete lack of care for anyone but herself, and the kid for whom she nannies, Mia. Plus, I think she really only cared for Mia, because she saw the kid as herself as a young girl--no parents who cared, an absentee father, etc. It would have been so easy for someone to take advantage of Josie. I was also horrified that at the end of the novel, her mother told her not to come home, but to pay off her debt, give up on her Broadway dream, and to become like, a “hairdresser” or something. Um, what? No “finish your high school education?!” No, “if musicals and drama means so much to you pursue a higher education after high school that might better equip you for that?”
worse than peaking in high school was to never peak at all. To treat life like a big waiting room, idly reading whatever magazines were available playing a game on your phone, killing time till your name was finally called. It wasn’t in Josie Pie’s nature to wait. Broadway was never going to call her name. Community theater was barely even bothering. Time she got out there herself and started re-peaking. And she couldn’t do that until she let it go.”
For the life of me, I have no idea what the moral of this story was--give up your dreams? Settle for a mediocre existence? Don’t go back to high school? All I know after making it through this novel, was >that Josie was most definitely Not. A. Big. Deal. And apparently, neither were her dreams, since she had no problem giving them up when she wasn’t some teenage prodigy. I feel that it would have made more sense if Josie discovered a love of writing musicals or screenplays through all the reading/novel-hopping she did in this story, or some other career that was musical-adjacent that she could hope to accomplish, but instead, she just completely gives up and the novel leaves her future up in the air, stating maybe she’ll continue being a nanny or get her GED. Regardless, it seems clear that Josie will be taking the easy route of quitting her dreams and staying with her high school boyfriend, even though Kind of a Big Deal tells readers multiple times that high school sweethearts never last.
Besides having no idea what the purpose of this novel was, I am not really sure who the intended audience for Kind of a Big Deal was. As someone who experienced high school for herself, I found Josie’s experience there completely unbelievable--as was her experience in every single novel she jumped into, her dating life, her friendships, and literally every other facet of her existence. The author seems horribly out of touch. I cringed at the things Josie said and did in her real life--even though I think they’re supposed to be funny or relatable--or the things she fantasized about in her novel hopping.
I would say this novel is more for middle graders who haven’t yet experienced high school and maybe enjoy musicals, but I would hesitate to recommend this to any young reader due to its lack of any kind of a good message. Furthermore, Kind of a Big Deal is written so simplistically that I feel it would actually be better suited for a kid in elementary school, but again the message of giving up your dreams makes that an iffy recommendation to make. Ultimately, if you have a young reader who is really into musicals and singing, they may absolutely love this novel. But get ready to have Kind of a Big discussion about dreams and realistic expectations afterwards.
Bloggingwithdragons.com
My Book Review Policy
August 16, 2020
Despite the jumping into a book vibes, this one turned out to be a bit of chore to read. Josie is a delightful main character and having her literally fall into several different genres was a big part of what I liked about the book. Her sassy commentary on her book adventures reminded me of the Rebel Wilson film "Isn't It Romantic" and I really thought that was well done. So, what's not to like in this new release from Shannon Hale? The "in book" episodes got a little lengthy and complicated. Heck, the whole book was just too long. Then there was the muse-fighting episode that got really out there. The whole thing went a little Percy Jackson, but not in a good way. Anyhoo, I don't recommend this and plan to stick with the Princess In Black for my next Shannon Hale title.
Thank you to Roaring Brook Press and Edelweiss for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to Roaring Brook Press and Edelweiss for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.
April 1, 2021
"My life isn't a flop. It's a comedy."
Shannon Hale, a staple author during my teen years, consistently explores coming-of-age struggles that her genre underplays, this time with a magical fantasy edge. KIND OF A BIG DEAL lovingly tackles that torturous transition period between a "gifted" childhood to a jarringly mediocre adulthood. Many of us were encouraged to attach our identities to a talent during adolescence, whether that was high grades, a sparkly artistic skill, or status among our peers.
But what happens when the broader world doesn't find our specialness that...special? How do we learn not just to accept, but to love our unexpected ordinary-ness?
Hale answers this question using a fantasy element that honestly is a lot more sophisticated than simply "falling into a book," though she performs this trope more creatively than I've ever seen it done before.
If you've ever been called "gifted," that simultaneous badge of pride and crippling burden... don't sleep on this book.
Shannon Hale, a staple author during my teen years, consistently explores coming-of-age struggles that her genre underplays, this time with a magical fantasy edge. KIND OF A BIG DEAL lovingly tackles that torturous transition period between a "gifted" childhood to a jarringly mediocre adulthood. Many of us were encouraged to attach our identities to a talent during adolescence, whether that was high grades, a sparkly artistic skill, or status among our peers.
But what happens when the broader world doesn't find our specialness that...special? How do we learn not just to accept, but to love our unexpected ordinary-ness?
Hale answers this question using a fantasy element that honestly is a lot more sophisticated than simply "falling into a book," though she performs this trope more creatively than I've ever seen it done before.
If you've ever been called "gifted," that simultaneous badge of pride and crippling burden... don't sleep on this book.
August 29, 2022
I thought this was a straightforward story about a girl who peaked in high school coming to terms with that . . . which it was . . . but it also was so much more! Josie Pie starts out both awkward and insufferable, a rare and annoying combination. But it's clear from the first that you're supposed to find her that way, that she's becoming aware that she's that way, and that things need to change. But how they change, and what happens to Josie is a LOT different from what I expected. There was more here than teen angst. There was more than just learning to be a better friend, and not give up on your dreams. I was not expecting the romance to go the way it did. I was not expecting the climax of the book AT ALL. My daughter also read it and loved it, and was very disappointed to find that the books within the book were not real. I'm going to have to find her a couple of comparable titles!
November 11, 2020
1.5 stars
A half star for the pretty cover and a one star for managing to write a book, I guess.
I was so close to just putting this down halfway through but I thought no, let’s see where this goes, maybe Josie will realise what she’s doing.
My friends, she did not.
This book has a lot of promise – a story about a girl who gets drawn into the different books she’s reading thus experiencing a historical romance, a zombie fic and a YA Romance has potential, but it went nowhere. It almost seemed as though Hale wanted to write four different books, didn’t know how to fully flesh them out so they were thrown together haphazardly in this ending with the strangest ‘twist’ on how she’s able to do all that.
The different book settings were not the main fault of my dislike though. That falls to the lead character, Josie Pie, an insufferable girl who has zero character development until the chapter and even then, it’s minimal. We’re talking about a girl who left high school early at the age of 17 to go to New York and ‘make it’ as a Broadway star (an incredibly tough and demanding dream to have). When things don’t seem to be working out Josie moves away and becomes a nanny. There’s nothing wrong with that except for the fact that Josie doesn’t use this time to reflect, to make a plan, to decide on anything. Instead, she lives and longs for the past, which at first I thought there had been some considerable years in between but no, there’s only been about a year so. In any case, Josie constantly mentions her ‘glory days’ you could say of being the star of her high school, and fantasises about when things were ‘easier’ and it was all coming up roses, which just isn’t life. I wanted to scream “it’s okay to fail!” because that seemed like one of the biggest lessons Josie needed to learn.
The romance in here was also very strange. First of all, the fact that she’s taken his last name as her ‘stage name’ because she believed they’ll be together... her and her high school boyfriend (I know this is possible but it is highly unlikely and kind of unhealthy if you ask me). Josie also mentions she hasn’t really been talking to her boyfriend Justin for a few months, she’s worried that they’re drifting apart, then also comes the fear that he’s cheating on her. Yet, somehow, all of this is resolved when (spoiler alert) Justin arrives at her house after driving across country and that’s that, they can live happily ever after now.
This was just tough going.
A half star for the pretty cover and a one star for managing to write a book, I guess.
I was so close to just putting this down halfway through but I thought no, let’s see where this goes, maybe Josie will realise what she’s doing.
My friends, she did not.
This book has a lot of promise – a story about a girl who gets drawn into the different books she’s reading thus experiencing a historical romance, a zombie fic and a YA Romance has potential, but it went nowhere. It almost seemed as though Hale wanted to write four different books, didn’t know how to fully flesh them out so they were thrown together haphazardly in this ending with the strangest ‘twist’ on how she’s able to do all that.
The different book settings were not the main fault of my dislike though. That falls to the lead character, Josie Pie, an insufferable girl who has zero character development until the chapter and even then, it’s minimal. We’re talking about a girl who left high school early at the age of 17 to go to New York and ‘make it’ as a Broadway star (an incredibly tough and demanding dream to have). When things don’t seem to be working out Josie moves away and becomes a nanny. There’s nothing wrong with that except for the fact that Josie doesn’t use this time to reflect, to make a plan, to decide on anything. Instead, she lives and longs for the past, which at first I thought there had been some considerable years in between but no, there’s only been about a year so. In any case, Josie constantly mentions her ‘glory days’ you could say of being the star of her high school, and fantasises about when things were ‘easier’ and it was all coming up roses, which just isn’t life. I wanted to scream “it’s okay to fail!” because that seemed like one of the biggest lessons Josie needed to learn.
The romance in here was also very strange. First of all, the fact that she’s taken his last name as her ‘stage name’ because she believed they’ll be together... her and her high school boyfriend (I know this is possible but it is highly unlikely and kind of unhealthy if you ask me). Josie also mentions she hasn’t really been talking to her boyfriend Justin for a few months, she’s worried that they’re drifting apart, then also comes the fear that he’s cheating on her. Yet, somehow, all of this is resolved when (spoiler alert) Justin arrives at her house after driving across country and that’s that, they can live happily ever after now.
This was just tough going.
August 20, 2020
"Musicals were better than real life. And if Josie could make a wish, she'd live in one forever."
This book has everything: Dramatic musical numbers. A family of overly attractive booksellers. Escaping reality (literally) by reading books. Realistic depictions of teenage relationships and friendships and how they change over time. An unlikable main character who I also kind of love. Theatre kids. Pretentious English majors. Impromptu Spice Girls??
Josie Pie dropped out of high school to move to New York and become an actress, but that didn't exactly work out for her. When opportunities started drying up after only a few months, she took a job as a nanny and, when the family decided to move to Montana, she went with them. Now she's taking care of five-year-old Mia and trying to figure out what her life is going to look like. Hoping to escape the real world for a bit, she opens up a book...and finds herself transported inside it.
This book very much feels like it was written by a book-and-theatre nerd, for book-and-theatre nerds. As someone who is both, I enjoyed it immensely. It gets quite meta, since Josie ends up inside books of many different genres, and we get to explore and play with the different tropes in each of them. Anyone who spends too much of their time reading will probably find many parts of this relatable.
Josie herself is not the most likable character, but in a way that's clearly deliberate. She's used to being the star of the show, and she acts like it. For much of the book, she's somewhat naive and in denial. It can be frustrating to read, but it also felt realistic for someone in her situation. Despite this, I liked her a lot (though I do tend to enjoy unlikable characters in general). My biggest complaint was that her voice sometimes sounded immature and a lot younger than eighteen, which could take me out of the story.
Not to mention, so much of what Josie was going through felt, uh, uncomfortably relatable. Everyone thought she was going to succeed in life, but then she moved to New York and completely failed. And now she's had to put everything on hold and reevaluate all of her life goals. As someone who also thought she was going places and has had to pause all of her dreams thanks to coronavirus (including...*checks notes* literally also moving to New York), that hit kinda close to home! The message that this book ends on genuinely meant a lot to me.
"We tend to think of life as all linear," Nina went on, "as if each moment, each year, has to be better than the last, and if it's not, we failed. But we're all of it at the same time. And then some. So be patient with yourself, Josie. Don't judge yourself by any one moment. Allow yourself room to change."
Shannon Hale also managed to capture that very teenage feeling that you have to have your life figured out by a certain age, and that you then have to stick with that decision forever or else you've failed. I love whenever books can address and dismantle this idea, and this book does it so well.
Much of the book is focused on Josie, but there were a few other standout characters. One of my favorites, strangely enough, was Mia, the little girl that Josie was taking care of. Shannon Hale is so good at creating realistic and adorable child characters whom I love!
We also get to know Justin, Josie high school boyfriend who's kind of been ghosting her lately. There's Nina, her best friend, who's doing great things with her life and making Josie feel a bit left behind. And Deo, the cute local bookseller who seems to take an immediate interest in Josie. All of these characters, and more, keep showing up as she's transported into books, often in the most hilarious ways.
I'm a huge fan of books that incorporate a bit of magic into a contemporary setting, and I especially loved how this one did it. The premise of Josie being pulled into the books she's reading is just so much fun, and though I obviously enjoyed certain books more than others, I appreciated the creativity that went into each of those scenarios. Also, each one showed a little something about what Josie wants from life and allowed her to grow as a character. And let's be real, if it were me, I would probably enjoy being in her situation a little too much.
This book is quirky, unique, and endlessly entertaining. It manages to ask serious questions like What if you had the chance to redo parts of your life but better? while also asking What if you could fight off zombies while also performing a musical number? I found myself laughing out loud so many times while reading. If you like musicals, coming of age stories, or would rather live in fictional worlds than real life, then go pick up this book ASAP.
"Even worse than peaking in high school was to never peak at all. To treat life like a big waiting room, idly reading whatever magazines were available, playing a game on your phone, killing time till your name was finally called."
*ARC PROVIDED BY EDELWEISS IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW. QUOTES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.*
Content warnings: mentions of transphobia
Originally posted on blog
June 22, 2020
My biggest takeaway from Kind of a Big Deal is that it felt like it was one book trying to be too many different things. As the story is about our main character, Josie Pie, being able to jump into stories, this wasn't entirely unexpected. For any type of portal story to work, there needs to be some sort of grounding element that helps hold all the disparate elements together. Unfortunately for this story, the grounding element was how utterly frustrating Josie was as a main character. I found her to be a bland narrator who's really self-absorbed. There was some character growth, thank goodness, but it seemed to all be squished into the last 20% of the book and I'm still not really sure that Josie really learned the lessons the story set out to teach her.
There was a big mismatch between the age of nearly all the characters in this book and the age that it was written for. Josie is eighteen and her peers in the book all seem to also be in their late teens or early twenties. The writing style of the book felt really young, as though it were geared more toward younger teens, and left me feeling jarred. I have nothing against books on either age spectrum of YA but would've preferred if the writing style of the book reflected the age of most of the characters.
The premise was really interesting and kept me entertained enough to keep reading. The investigation about how our fantasies shape how we view ourselves was unlike anything else I've seen in YA and is certainly something I'll be mulling over for a while after finishing this.
C/W:
Thank you to Netgalley and Roaring Brook Press for providing an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
There was a big mismatch between the age of nearly all the characters in this book and the age that it was written for. Josie is eighteen and her peers in the book all seem to also be in their late teens or early twenties. The writing style of the book felt really young, as though it were geared more toward younger teens, and left me feeling jarred. I have nothing against books on either age spectrum of YA but would've preferred if the writing style of the book reflected the age of most of the characters.
The premise was really interesting and kept me entertained enough to keep reading. The investigation about how our fantasies shape how we view ourselves was unlike anything else I've seen in YA and is certainly something I'll be mulling over for a while after finishing this.
C/W:
Thank you to Netgalley and Roaring Brook Press for providing an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
June 30, 2020
Reading is magical right? A good book transports its readers into another world, another dimension and the impossible comes to life. I really think that was exactly what Shannon Hale was trying to do with KIND OF A BIG DEAL as her main character, Josie is transported into each book she reads, while her fellow characters look like people from her “real” world.
Great idea, great concept, but for me it just became a little too splintered and never really got off the ground and Josie wasn’t that likable of a character, no real depth and pretty immature for her age of eighteen. She was a high school dropout, determined to make it on Broadway. She left behind her high school romance, her small town and found that just maybe, she wasn’t as good as she had believed. Very painful, indeed, yet it was the books from a local book shop that began her confusing adventure and had me struggling to make sense of things.
I am a huge fan of well-written young adult books. The only way to make readers out of children is to give them quality reading, from fantasy to futuristic. This book is recommended for the 12-18 year-old readers, but, seriously, as an example for young teens, Josie misses the mark completely. As a magnetic tale to encourage reading, it just isn’t there on these pages.
I do think the author has a vivid imagination and some wonderful ideas, I just think it became everything but the kitchen sink that tried too hard to be a literary masterpiece.
I received a complimentary ARC edition from Roaring Book Press! This is my honest and voluntary review.
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press (August 25, 2020)
Publication Date: August 25, 2020
Genre: YA Fantasy
Print Length: 400 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
For Reviews, Giveaways, Fabulous Book News, follow: http://tometender.blogspot.com
Great idea, great concept, but for me it just became a little too splintered and never really got off the ground and Josie wasn’t that likable of a character, no real depth and pretty immature for her age of eighteen. She was a high school dropout, determined to make it on Broadway. She left behind her high school romance, her small town and found that just maybe, she wasn’t as good as she had believed. Very painful, indeed, yet it was the books from a local book shop that began her confusing adventure and had me struggling to make sense of things.
I am a huge fan of well-written young adult books. The only way to make readers out of children is to give them quality reading, from fantasy to futuristic. This book is recommended for the 12-18 year-old readers, but, seriously, as an example for young teens, Josie misses the mark completely. As a magnetic tale to encourage reading, it just isn’t there on these pages.
I do think the author has a vivid imagination and some wonderful ideas, I just think it became everything but the kitchen sink that tried too hard to be a literary masterpiece.
I received a complimentary ARC edition from Roaring Book Press! This is my honest and voluntary review.
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press (August 25, 2020)
Publication Date: August 25, 2020
Genre: YA Fantasy
Print Length: 400 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
For Reviews, Giveaways, Fabulous Book News, follow: http://tometender.blogspot.com
August 8, 2021
Thanks but no thanks, Shannon Hale.
You're a super great author. But this one was a hard miss for me.
The storyline was interesting enough, but the main character Josie was pretty obnoxious for the whole of the book. Her background story was pretty unrealistic and I just really didn't like her.
The plot seemed to skip around a lot, and I mostly skimmed through the last half of the book. There seemed to be an immediate "happily ever after" between Josie and her boyfriend from back home, even though they hadn't seen each other in like, a year. *ugh*
I was pretty disappointed that I didn't like this book (and I'm not alone), since Shannon Hale is definitely talented with words. But, save yourself the energy and skip this one.
You're a super great author. But this one was a hard miss for me.
The storyline was interesting enough, but the main character Josie was pretty obnoxious for the whole of the book. Her background story was pretty unrealistic and I just really didn't like her.
The plot seemed to skip around a lot, and I mostly skimmed through the last half of the book. There seemed to be an immediate "happily ever after" between Josie and her boyfriend from back home, even though they hadn't seen each other in like, a year. *ugh*
I was pretty disappointed that I didn't like this book (and I'm not alone), since Shannon Hale is definitely talented with words. But, save yourself the energy and skip this one.
January 22, 2021
I was so close to DNF'ing this book at every second. The main character is so unlikeable that it became hard to read from her perspective. She was awful at communicating, but so were all of the other characters. None of them seemed realistic.
Then, there was the plot. It didn't really make any sense to me, and the writing of it as a whole felt more like a middle-grade novel than YA.
This was such an interesting concept but the execution was unfortunately very poor.
Then, there was the plot. It didn't really make any sense to me, and the writing of it as a whole felt more like a middle-grade novel than YA.
This was such an interesting concept but the execution was unfortunately very poor.
Shelved as 'dnf'
July 14, 2020This book is painful. I made it 10% of the way in and gave up. Yikes.
June 24, 2021
I never thought the day would come when I would give a Shannon Hale book only one star, but that day is today. I was so incredibly disappointed by this book. The writing was not engaging, the characters were caricatures, and the ending fizzled. But even worse, as far as I'm concerned, was that this book included content I would have appreciated being warned about, including but not limited to "bodice-ripping, breast-heaving romance" (and yes, those words are actually used repeatedly in the book), a homosexual father figure/teacher who gives completely inappropriate and life-changing advice to the main character with no consequences or resolution, and a transgender best friend who the reader doesn't know is transgender until about 50% of the way into the book when the difficulties the character experienced transitioning several years ago come up and then become a fairly significant part of the rest of the book. Child abandonment and abuse also come up. And worst of all, there's no resolution or redemption for any of this. I kept reading, waiting for the book to get better, but it never did. I was so relieved when it ended even though the ending was trite and lame and resolved nothing.
My teens and I have loved this author for a long time, ever since falling in love with Princess Academy, the Books of Bayern, and my personal favorite, Book of a Thousand Days. I picked up a copy of this book for them from the library after seeing it was about an older teen because I know they love her writing. I do know that she writes in other genres, including adult, but since this main character was only a year older than my oldest and nothing in the book blurb indicated the content issues I delineated above, I didn't give it a second thought. Fortunately, my teens have been really busy lately so I picked this book up before they did. I have now warned them and they have no desire to read it. I'm sad most of all that I won't be able to trust this author again. To me, that's kind of a big deal.
My teens and I have loved this author for a long time, ever since falling in love with Princess Academy, the Books of Bayern, and my personal favorite, Book of a Thousand Days. I picked up a copy of this book for them from the library after seeing it was about an older teen because I know they love her writing. I do know that she writes in other genres, including adult, but since this main character was only a year older than my oldest and nothing in the book blurb indicated the content issues I delineated above, I didn't give it a second thought. Fortunately, my teens have been really busy lately so I picked this book up before they did. I have now warned them and they have no desire to read it. I'm sad most of all that I won't be able to trust this author again. To me, that's kind of a big deal.
August 29, 2020
Once upon a time, Josie was kind of a big deal. She owned her high school stage, and there were many who believed she would "make it". Encouraged by her drama teacher, she dropped out of school to audition for a Broadway production in NY. But after not quite making the cut, she fled and hid out in Montana working as a Nanny. Feeling the weight of her failures, she found herself escaping via the pages of a book, but there seemed to be a bit of magic fueling these escapes.
I had a rather good time reading this book. I think Josie's conflict is one people could relate to on some level. She felt as though she had peaked in high school and there was really nowhere for her to go. In reality, she was impeding her future by constantly looking back. She let her high school hey-days and day dreams define her self worth, and that was keeping her from moving forward, taking chances, and also from forming meaningful relationships.
Via the different stories she dropped into, she was able to gain a bit of perspective on her past and who she was now. She discovered quite a few truths about what she thought were the best-days-of-her-life, the person she was back then, and the different things she was capable of now. I thought it was a rather ingenious path to self discovery.
Overall, I enjoyed jumping from book to book and seeing Josie grow and learn.
*ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.
BLOG | INSTAGRAM |TWITTER | BLOGLOVIN | FRIEND ME ON GOODREADS
I had a rather good time reading this book. I think Josie's conflict is one people could relate to on some level. She felt as though she had peaked in high school and there was really nowhere for her to go. In reality, she was impeding her future by constantly looking back. She let her high school hey-days and day dreams define her self worth, and that was keeping her from moving forward, taking chances, and also from forming meaningful relationships.
Via the different stories she dropped into, she was able to gain a bit of perspective on her past and who she was now. She discovered quite a few truths about what she thought were the best-days-of-her-life, the person she was back then, and the different things she was capable of now. I thought it was a rather ingenious path to self discovery.
Overall, I enjoyed jumping from book to book and seeing Josie grow and learn.
*ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.
BLOG | INSTAGRAM |TWITTER | BLOGLOVIN | FRIEND ME ON GOODREADS
August 25, 2020
I was pretty excited a see a new book by Shannon Hale. I've really loved so many of her earlier books and the premise for this book sounded intriguing. Unfortunately, I didn't love this book quite as much as I had hoped.
Josie was a difficult character for me to connect with. I didn't really like her so it made it hard to stay focused and really care about what was happening to her. Her character did show growth by the end so that was good. Josie definitely felt like a teenager so the author nailed that. The little girl Josie was a nanny for was cute! I think she was my favorite character in the book.
I will admit to doing a bit of skimming, especially when Josie becomes the character in the books she is reading. I get what the author was trying to do and the purpose behind it, it just didn't click in with me how she intended, I think. I really wanted to like this book but I just didn't.
- I received a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
Josie was a difficult character for me to connect with. I didn't really like her so it made it hard to stay focused and really care about what was happening to her. Her character did show growth by the end so that was good. Josie definitely felt like a teenager so the author nailed that. The little girl Josie was a nanny for was cute! I think she was my favorite character in the book.
I will admit to doing a bit of skimming, especially when Josie becomes the character in the books she is reading. I get what the author was trying to do and the purpose behind it, it just didn't click in with me how she intended, I think. I really wanted to like this book but I just didn't.
- I received a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
Read
February 6, 2021Okay, this book is definitely not going to be for everyone, but as a musical theater nerd and an appreciator of strange things, I enjoyed it. It was a good escape book for me, light and funny, completely weird, with some moment of depth, and I'm just a big fan of Shannon Hale in general.
October 7, 2020
It's such a cute idea but the story within a story books never quite work for me. I am a huge fan of Shannon Hale's Books of Bayern series and would highly recommend those though.
December 1, 2024
It's okay. Nothing too special, but very weird and the ending was actually a bit scary to me. It just seems surreal- XD
I actually was anticipating a sweeping book. To be honest this book wasn't the best. Some parts were nice, it just felt too ordinary for me. I didn't really enjoy the ending D:
Better RTC?
I actually was anticipating a sweeping book. To be honest this book wasn't the best. Some parts were nice, it just felt too ordinary for me. I didn't really enjoy the ending D:
Better RTC?
August 20, 2020
I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
As someone who devoured and loved Shannon Hale's work in the past, I'm so disappointed with this book and am sad to give it a low rating. Like many other reviewers here, I requested this both because of the author and because the premise sounded intriguing--a girl who escapes reality by literally immersing herself in books seems like a compelling adventure. Unfortunately, the execution is poor.
Hale tries to promote sympathy for Josie, who dropped out of high school and moved to New York at the age of seventeen because her drama teacher thought she could make it on Broadway and instead ended up running to Missoula, but instead Josie comes off as intensely unlikable and self-absorbed, despite her past traumas. The way Josie plays the cis savior for Nina, her trans best friend, doesn't help with this negative character development. As for the book immersion, magical realism (or, as it becomes later, straight-up fantasy) only works if the author adheres to to rules they set forth for their new world; I didn't feel like Hale did that most of the time. The ending was also a little rushed and trite.
The only person in the book I cared for was Mia, the little girl Josie nannies; she's cute and caring, and I felt bad for the way her mother (and, at one point, Josie) essentially abandoned her.
As someone who devoured and loved Shannon Hale's work in the past, I'm so disappointed with this book and am sad to give it a low rating. Like many other reviewers here, I requested this both because of the author and because the premise sounded intriguing--a girl who escapes reality by literally immersing herself in books seems like a compelling adventure. Unfortunately, the execution is poor.
Hale tries to promote sympathy for Josie, who dropped out of high school and moved to New York at the age of seventeen because her drama teacher thought she could make it on Broadway and instead ended up running to Missoula, but instead Josie comes off as intensely unlikable and self-absorbed, despite her past traumas. The way Josie plays the cis savior for Nina, her trans best friend, doesn't help with this negative character development. As for the book immersion, magical realism (or, as it becomes later, straight-up fantasy) only works if the author adheres to to rules they set forth for their new world; I didn't feel like Hale did that most of the time. The ending was also a little rushed and trite.
The only person in the book I cared for was Mia, the little girl Josie nannies; she's cute and caring, and I felt bad for the way her mother (and, at one point, Josie) essentially abandoned her.
October 30, 2020
Want to see more bookish things from me? Check out my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfer...
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion*
1.5/5 Stars
After dropping out of high school, Josie Pie moved to New York to live out her dream of Broadway. Unfortunately, she wasn't as big of a deal as she thought. She has also been feeling that her bestfriend Nina, and boyfriend, Justin, have been growing distant ever since she left. She moves to Montana and becomes a nanny for a 5 year old girl named Mia. On a walk one day, they stumble upon a bookstore and decide to go in. She buys a book, then goes to the park, where she begins her book. Next thing Josie knows, she is sucked into the story, literally becoming the main character in the book. She quickly becomes obsessed with diving into the next story she can get her hands on, forgetting her real life along the way.
I was not a fan of the writing style. It was very repetitive and stilted. I also hated Josie, she was annoying and whiny and drove me insane, thinking she was so much better than everyone else. She is obsessed with her high school boyfriend...who she hasn't talked to in months... but took his last name, Pie, as her stage name. But as soon as she meets a new boy, Deo, she begins having feelings for him almost instantly. The only reason I finished the book was because it was so short, but it honestly felt like a chore to finish.
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion*
1.5/5 Stars
After dropping out of high school, Josie Pie moved to New York to live out her dream of Broadway. Unfortunately, she wasn't as big of a deal as she thought. She has also been feeling that her bestfriend Nina, and boyfriend, Justin, have been growing distant ever since she left. She moves to Montana and becomes a nanny for a 5 year old girl named Mia. On a walk one day, they stumble upon a bookstore and decide to go in. She buys a book, then goes to the park, where she begins her book. Next thing Josie knows, she is sucked into the story, literally becoming the main character in the book. She quickly becomes obsessed with diving into the next story she can get her hands on, forgetting her real life along the way.
I was not a fan of the writing style. It was very repetitive and stilted. I also hated Josie, she was annoying and whiny and drove me insane, thinking she was so much better than everyone else. She is obsessed with her high school boyfriend...who she hasn't talked to in months... but took his last name, Pie, as her stage name. But as soon as she meets a new boy, Deo, she begins having feelings for him almost instantly. The only reason I finished the book was because it was so short, but it honestly felt like a chore to finish.
February 24, 2021
DNF @ 20%.
Y'all. I have no idea what the heck was going on in this book. It took me a while to get my bearings, with a character who we learn next to nothing about (while thinks she is the biggest and most special person) and a plot that I honestly couldn't make sense of. And then! The plot changes as she enters the book she is reading. As I was listening to the book, I am not sure if there were visual cues that it changed worlds - but I was unprepared as a listener, and than I couldn't stop thinking 'what is even happening?'
We do not know anything about the characters before the shift, and so the only way I could tell who was what is because characters were named at one point and my brain went "yes that is a recognizable name." But all the while, I had no idea what anyone looked like, save for a hair color and style.
I fell asleep listening to it, and when I woke up, I realized I did not even have a sliver of want to continue.
Off to the next. Sorry Shannon Hale.
Y'all. I have no idea what the heck was going on in this book. It took me a while to get my bearings, with a character who we learn next to nothing about (while thinks she is the biggest and most special person) and a plot that I honestly couldn't make sense of. And then! The plot changes as she enters the book she is reading. As I was listening to the book, I am not sure if there were visual cues that it changed worlds - but I was unprepared as a listener, and than I couldn't stop thinking 'what is even happening?'
We do not know anything about the characters before the shift, and so the only way I could tell who was what is because characters were named at one point and my brain went "yes that is a recognizable name." But all the while, I had no idea what anyone looked like, save for a hair color and style.
I fell asleep listening to it, and when I woke up, I realized I did not even have a sliver of want to continue.
Off to the next. Sorry Shannon Hale.
February 20, 2023
CW: transphobic behaviour mention
I enjoyed the last parts of the book more than the first part.
I enjoyed the stories that Josie escaped into, and how her imagination helped to cast her characters.
But seriously I felt like I was reading 'I was a big deal in high school' every other page sometimes,especially detailing her friendship with Nina. It all felt a bit repetitive to me, and I didn't like the fact she was so hung up on Justin all the time, especially when she decided to stay with Victoria and Mia a while and then he turns up
I might read something else from the author in future though.
I enjoyed the last parts of the book more than the first part.
I enjoyed the stories that Josie escaped into, and how her imagination helped to cast her characters.
But seriously I felt like I was reading 'I was a big deal in high school' every other page sometimes,especially detailing her friendship with Nina. It all felt a bit repetitive to me, and I didn't like the fact she was so hung up on Justin all the time, especially when she decided to stay with Victoria and Mia a while and then he turns up
I might read something else from the author in future though.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 18, 2020
Omg, Shannon Hale, can we be best friends? The plot of this book is basically a dream. Josie Pie is a dream protagonist. When her life is falling apart and her aspirations have landed her nowhere, she literally finds herself in falling into a book over and over again living as the lead in a variety of genres. I absolutely loved the creativity of this book, and Josie Pie’s voice is one I wanted with me far after it was over. It was like a teenage girl version of The Pagemaster with so much more moxie. Something like this could have the likelihood of leaning into hokey territory, but instead it was delightful every step of the way. Thanks so much to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book I am sure to have students clamoring to read.
January 14, 2024
2.5 stars
I'm a sucker for a book about books or when various books are mentioned in a novel or when the characters from one novel travel into another. I feel like most bookworms probably enjoy those kind of novels...if done well.
This novel, while having the element of the main character being able to travel to different stories, didn't quite hit the mark for me. There was something missing throughout that didn't have me fully hooked.
I loved some of the messages in this novel such as with the friendship of Josie and Nina, along with the overall discovered message that comes with Josie travelling from the real world into these stories.
I have to be vague here because I don't want to spoil anything but I will say that I was surprised and disappointed by the end. To be honest, I'm surprised with the direction the author went with this because from what the author had shared about this particular character, I didn't really like them. That didn't change by the ending either.
I think this could be a good read for teenagers as it does feature that unknown for the future as well as a discussion of high school being the highest of high for some and the lowest of lows for others.
***Thank you to the publisher for supplying me with an electronic copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review***
I'm a sucker for a book about books or when various books are mentioned in a novel or when the characters from one novel travel into another. I feel like most bookworms probably enjoy those kind of novels...if done well.
This novel, while having the element of the main character being able to travel to different stories, didn't quite hit the mark for me. There was something missing throughout that didn't have me fully hooked.
I loved some of the messages in this novel such as with the friendship of Josie and Nina, along with the overall discovered message that comes with Josie travelling from the real world into these stories.
I have to be vague here because I don't want to spoil anything but I will say that I was surprised and disappointed by the end. To be honest, I'm surprised with the direction the author went with this because from what the author had shared about this particular character, I didn't really like them. That didn't change by the ending either.
I think this could be a good read for teenagers as it does feature that unknown for the future as well as a discussion of high school being the highest of high for some and the lowest of lows for others.
***Thank you to the publisher for supplying me with an electronic copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review***
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,172 reviews