Adorkable by Sarra Manning

Jeane Smith's a blogger, a dreamer, a jumble sale queen, CEO of her own lifestyle brand, and has half a million followers on Twitter. Michael Lee's a star of school, stage, and playing field. A golden boy in a Jack Wills hoodie. They have nothing in common but a pair of cheating exes. So why can't they stop making out? This novel is about an unlikely relationship, but it's also about roller derby, dogs on skateboards, dogs on surfboards, dogs doing any form of extreme sport, old skool hip hop, riding your bike downhill really fast, riot grrrl, those boys you want to kiss but punch in the face at the same time, dyeing your hair ridiculous colors just because you can, stitch 'n' bitch, the songs that make you dance, the songs that make you cry, being a bad ass, cake, love, death, and everything in between.

Jeane is the queen of her own fashion statement: she loves to look however she wants and doesn't care who she annoys while she speaks her mind. I instantly fell in love with her then got annoyed with her, then loved her again. Sounds confusing but I understood her, which is saying something about my social life, and liked her when we were inside her head but did get a little peeved when we saw her from another perspective. Maybe that was just because Michael didn't understand her for quite a while. Either way, Jeane was an amazing fresh protagonist in YA, a nerdy girl that doesn't care about her social status, her body shape, keeping up with fashions - just plain awesome.

I loved the alternating chapters, allowing us to see both sides of the story and understand both Jeane and Michael, which meant I didn't automatically dislike Michael just because Jeane did. It was refreshing to see a double perspective that didn't confuse me! And with this double narrative, we saw the development of both characters, saw how they mended bridges and morphed behaviour a little without even realising, just to not cause more arguments or because they actually liked each other and didn't want to admit it.

Michael was pretty sweet, kind of annoying in his "everyone likes me, I dress to be popular" thing, but he had individual thought, which I think attracted Jeane. And while their relationship was not typical, it was surprising in a good way, for both the characters and the reader. But I think the most important thing about this story was that it turned out to be so much more poignant, more expressive than I thought it would be. It shows the importance of being who you are, not conforming and learning to be comfortable with yourself when no-one is in the age of teens.

Published 24th May 2012 by Atom.