Synopsis from Amazon:
Brilliant designer Miko Jin is a hopeless romantic. She’s spent most of her life falling in love over and over again…with the men she finds in the pages of her favorite novels.
When Miko meets Liam Ashton, it’s love at first sight. At least, for her. Sure, the two of them are polar opposites, and yes, he seems to be dating someone new each week. But Miko knows what true love is and that you can’t rush it—after all, what she lacks in real-world experience, she makes up for in book smarts. With novels as her guide, and her best friends by her side, she knows she can get Liam to love her back. But just like any good romance novel, fate has a few plot twists in store. Will Miko get her own happy ending? Will she find the strength to stand up for what she deserves even if it means breaking her own heart?
*I received a free digital advanced reader’s copy of this book from Lake Union Publishing. This did not influence my review of this book in anyway. This is an honest review of the novel as I saw it. This novel was released on January 26, 2016.*
Full disclosure, I didn’t read the first two books in this series before I dived into Smart Girl. Party Girl has been on my wish list for way too long and when I saw the opportunity to read Smart Girl I just had to read it because it sounded so good. And it was!
If you’re like me and haven’t read the first two books in this series, don’t worry. You don’t have to. You should, and I have every intention of going back and reading them as soon as possible, but you definitely don’t have to read them to dive into this novel. The author, Rachel Hollis, writes these novels in a way that they can also be stand alone books. Of course if you do choose to read this before the other two there will definitely be spoilers for the first two books. But it’s not like you need to know what happens in those books to read this one. Got it? Good.
Moving on, I absolutely loved this novel! The main character, Miko, is every fangirl’s dream. She references so many books I love like The Lunar Chronicles, The Hunger Games, and classics like Emma and Sense and Sensibility. But not only does she reference them she actually uses them to try to get the guy of her dreams, Liam, to love her back.
As one could expect this has varying results creating the perfect combination of hilarity and heartbreak when Miko’s plans occasionally failed. What’s more, though, is I just loved Miko as a character. I think anyone can relate to loving someone, especially for a long time, and struggling to find out if they feel the same way or if you should just call it quits. Unrequited love is the worse but sometimes getting what you want isn’t always what it seemed and Miko figures this out the hard way.
I really loved this novel, which is why I know I have to read the first two books. Smart Girl was funny, heartwarming, heartbreaking, and filled with so many life lessons about friendship, family, and love. It took me about a day to finish this novel because once I started reading I was immediately hooked. Miko is a great narrator and I loved her sense of style and the way she got so into her designing.
I also really liked the side characters as well. Landon and Max were perfect, as were Miko’s assistant, Casidee, and her brother, Tosh. Also, although I think this is the perfect end to this series, I’d be interested in seeing two more books about Casidee and Liam and Max’s younger sister, Malin, finding love. Hollis kind of left that open ended in the epilogue, which jumps three years forward, so I think there’s room for that but I’d be totally fine if the series ended here. It’s a really great ending.
Last quick thing but did anyone else notice that Party Girl and Sweet Girl are amongst the pile of books on the cover of Smart Girl? I just noticed them and that’s so cool! Such a nice touch.
Borrow or Buy: Buy! Buy all three books. I plan to.
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Zakiya N. Jamal 