E-Arc Review: What Kind of Girl by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

Title: What Kind of Girl
Author: Alyssa B. Sheinmel
Genre: YA Contemporary
Publication Date: February 1st, 2020

Book Contains: Domestic Abuse, Bulimia, and Self-Harm

eARC provided by publisher through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

“The girls at North Bay Academy are taking sides. It all started when Mike Parker’s girlfriend showed up with a bruise on her face. Or, more specifically, when she walked into the principal’s office and said Mike hit her. But the students have questions. Why did she go to the principal and not the polcie? Why did she stay so long if he was hurting her? Obviously, if it’s true, Mike should be expelled. But is it true?

Some girls want to rally for his expulsion—and some want to rally around Mike. The only thing that the entire student body can agree on? Someone is lying. And the truth has to come out.” (Goodreads)

I read another book by this author at the beginning of this year called A Danger to Herself and Others. You can find the review for that title here. I liked her take on mental illness as it was very intriguing. Since I liked that one, I decided to request this book in hopes I would like it just as much. Unfortunately, there was just too much to try to grasp and it made the book lack in certain areas along with being quite slow at times.

One of the issues I had from the beginning was how the chapters were separated. It was hard trying to figure out if each person (the burnout, the girlfriend, the popular girl, the bulimic) were in fact the same person. This was also the case in part two of the book, except the titles were different. I didn’t start to realize that the book was two point-of-views until after part two. It was only then did it make more sense and that part one was Maya, the girl in an abusive relationship with other issues, and her best friend, who also had issues of her own. Even though it made more sense, the two characters still felt like they had the same voice and there wasn’t much to distinguish between the two voices.

When it came to the issues that the girls dealt with, I can’t speak on every one because I have never been in any of the situations besides being bulimic. I have struggled with my weight since I was young and as I got older I struggled with Anorexia and Bulimia. The bulimia in the book is mentioned just a couple of times and then is glossed over. There is no resolution for it or at least her getting help with it. I felt that even though the book was trying to bring light to the issue it shouldn’t have been included if it wasn’t going to be more informative. The other topics like OCD, self-harm, abuse, and drugs, were discussed more. I thought that most were pretty informative but if the author would have talked about just a few then it could have been more effective.

Overall, I understand why this book would be important for teenagers to read but feel that it could have been executed better.

 

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