Geek Girl 4: All That Glitters by Holly Smale

Book Title ~ Geek Girl 4 : All That Glitters 

Author ~ Holly Smale (Twitter) (Facebook) 

Publisher ~ HarperCollins Childrens Books

Format ~ Paperback / eBook 


A Page of Love Rating~ 




BOOK DESCRIPTION ~  

 “My name is Harriet Manners, and I am still a geek.”

The fourth book in the award-winning GEEK GIRL series.

Harriet Manners has high hopes for the new school year: she’s a Sixth Former now, and things are going to be different. But with Nat busy falling in love at college and Toby preoccupied with a Top Secret project, Harriet soon discovers that’s not necessarily a good thing…

DAWN'S THOUGHTS ~ 
With not much to go on with the book's blurb and having NEVER read any of the Geek Girl books (I know - I have no idea how I have never read one before either), I had absolutely NO idea what to expect. This is book 4 in the Geek Girl series, and having not read books 1,2 or 3, it didn't matter. I think you could quite easily read this on it's own, but you'll probably want to order books 1, 2 and 3 as well because if you're like me, you'll only end up wanting to read them anyway. 

I have to say that I bloody love Harriet Manners, and if I could tweet her and tell her that I would... in a heartbeat! Seriously she is amazing! (although she'd tell me off about my use of so many exclamations marks). I really identified with Harriet, she is like the twin sister I never had yet I always knew was missing from my life. If I could have gone to school with Harriet, we would have soooo been best friends. Although she is definitely smarter than me, I still think I could hold my own up there with her. 

I have never highlighted so many amazing passages in a book as I did with this one. Seriously, my kindle looks likes someone's gone uber crazy with highlighters! I will be posting a few of my favourites on my blog and featuring them in my side bar - yep, I'm a Geek Girl too! Which just got me wondering, I wonder if Geek Girl Harriet will ever start a blog... maybe she could be in a book about her blog and she could share all the numerical and geographical information about hits, comments, unique views, and posts being viewed across the world. ... 

Anyway, In book 4, we travel with Harriet as she is super psyched with the prospect of a new year at school - in sixth form. Everything's going to be different this time, she's going to make friends and no one will be looking at her in that weird way anymore. Toby is her stalker friend but he's behaving strangely - yes, more strangely than usual, and then there is her best friend who's got a new boyfriend and is so in love and never available anymore. Everything has changed, and then when things couldn't appear to be anymore different yet definitely not the same, that advert poster appears on the bus stop and everything changes. Or it could be the dinosaur cookies she bakes... 

Harriet gets a new modelling assignment and jets off to Marrakesh with a snake, monkey, camel and a drama queen who shouts at her. But underneath the stillness of the stars and among the sand dunes Harriet remembers Lion Boy. Her heart is breaking but she believes it was the right thing to do and when she feels lonely she writes him a letter. But does he ever receive them? 

With old friends unavailable and new friends being... well friendly, Is Harriet right to trust them? Can people really change? 

I have to give Geek Girl 4, 5 squidgy love hearts out of 5 because I simply adored it and found my inner Young Adult. I'm 26 years old and through Holly Smale, I have found a whole new love for books that I should have read and would have read when I was in high school. I can say that without a doubt, my friends really would have adored these books. A memory of my high school years was being (luckily) in a form group that consisted of majority highly intelligent peers, we were the high achievers and being a 'geek' was cool, funny at times, tease worthy among ourselves, and bloody respected.

One memory of my high school years was when A series of books came out focusing on teenage pregnancy because that was the issue being faced in schools and society. My mum bought them me because 1) she wanted to read them herself, and 2) because it was a book she thought I should read. I read them, and whilst reading them at school my friends, my peers were intrigued and wanted to read them too. And so these books became more and more well thumbed and battered as they were passed about us girls in my form. The boys smirked at us for reading them, but they even 'stole' a copy the once to read. Now, over 10 years later after reading those books, 1 out of our little group of 7 has children. The rest of us... well we're still without child. I think, along with common sense, and a maturity to life, reading those books helped. 

I love that Holly has made being a Geek AKA Intelligent and Knowledgeable, cool and aspire worthy of among our teens and young adults of today. Far too much of 'reality' has placed beauty high above brains in recent years with the influx of realty TV, glamour models branding perfume, make-up, clothes etc, and even as 'far' back as WAGs being the 'Career Dream' of many girls. Seriously, I taught in a school and this one class had both a WAG wannabe and a Geek Girl. They are both beautifully intelligent girls, but one favoured beauty above brains and vice versa. I know both these girls who are now in high school are going to have a wonderful future ahead of them, but knowing that there is a chance that these girls are reading books like Holly's make me live with hope for the future. 

YA books DEFINITELY have a place in our society and our shelves, and we should encourage Young Adults to read these books, because they have the power to not only entertain us in the short term, but to impact us in the long term. So go, buy Geek Girl 4, and any of the other Geek Girl books, read them and then pass them onto a Young Adult you know.