Revenge Of The Girl With The Great Personality | Elizabeth Eulberg | Book Review

Straight up, I love a good makeover montage, because I am shallow. Also because I love makeup and new clothes. I also like reading about things that are outside my realm of experience, like beauty pageants. When I came across Revenge of The Girl With The Great Personality by Elizabeth Eulberg, first on netgalley and then winning it in a contest, I was incredibly excited for it! I mean, CONGENIALITY! Humor! Teenagers! Crushes! I picked up Revenge Of The Girl With The Great Personality because I had assumed it would be a fun light read with a great message. I ended up disappointed.

Revenge Of The Girl With The Great Personality by Elizabeth Eulberg | Good Books And Good Wine

Lexi has a “great” personality. Yet, when it comes to her looks, she is just average. She’s not short. She’s not tall. She’s not heavy. She’s not thin. She has brown hair and brown eyes and wears baggy clothes. She will never be a beauty queen like her younger sister, Mackenzie. Mackenzie is seven and participates in beauty pageants. Their mother is totally one of those pageant moms who takes the whole thing so seriously. Lexi, on the other hand, does not take it all that serious, except for the opportunity it gives her to hone her fashion design skills. The other bright spot in her pageant-assisting is Logan. Unfortunately, Logan goes to the pageants to support his girlfriend, Alyssa. Prompted by her gay BFF, Benny, Lexi starts wearing makeup and clothes that actually fit her. This brings her the attention of the ‘Beautiful People’ and a football player named (LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL) Taylor Riggins. Unfortunately, Alyssa still has eyes only for Logan.

I know that this book is titled Revenge Of The Girl With The Great Personality, but I just didn’t see Lexi’s personality as being all that great. Sure, she’s supportive of her friends Benny and Cam. She just wants Benny to believe in himself and be happy. And she makes time to hang out with Cam (who I thought should have been the girl with the Great Personality as she was way more awesome). I kind of thought Lexi was not a very awesome person. Like, she apparently has such a wonderful personality because she is snarky and funny. But at the same time, she is trying to steal one girl’s boyfriend, she doesn’t give the time of day to the guy she is supposedly dating, and she does some very rude things to her mom.

Straight up, this is my opinion and my opinion alone, but I perceived Lexi’s attitude toward her mother as fat shaming. In the book, we are told that her mom gained 100 lbs after the divorce. Lexi is embarrassed by her mom. She does things like leave nutrition pamphlets on the table. She tries to tell her mom to just eat healthy. Girl, you are not your mom’s doctor, so pipe the frick down. I just thought she was so rude and mean toward her parent. And okay, yes I realize that her mom was very mean to her – prizing pageants above all, spending money she didn’t have, constantly fighting with Lexi, but seriously there are some lines that you just should not ever cross. And, here Lexi is presented as this person who is so great in personality, yet I thought she was a total dick.

Of course, I am probably taking Eulberg’s book WAY too seriously. I do that sometimes, ya know? Anyways, I found myself rolling my eyes a lot. There are a few awkward parts where Lexi delivers these grand speeches about the lessons she’s learned and it’s a bit too after school special for me. Like, lol, this one scene at a party or school or something, I forget, where’s she’s like you may be beautiful on the outside, but you will never be beautiful on the inside to this one popular girl. And it was like 2 paragraphs of her going on about inner beauty. My inner jerk just laughed, because it just came across as inauthentic and awkward.

On the other hand, I did think that the plotting was fairly solid. I also did find myself really caring about Lexi and feeling bad about certain things that happened to her. Revenge Of The Girl With The Great Personality is definitely not a slow read by any means. Instead, I read it pretty much in a sitting. Yes, it made me angry and irritated and annoyed, but I also come into these things with a certain progressive feminist mindset, and so I notice and pick up on things like fat shaming. Not everyone will. Also, I want to put out there that I am still willing to give Eulberg’s books another shot as I liked the pacing.

Disclosure: Won in a contest at Oblong Books

Other reviews of Revenge Of The Girl With The Great Personality by Elizabeth Eulberg:

Chick Loves Lit – “was really off the mark for me.
Alexa Loves Books – “I found myself speeding through the pages until I reached the end.
Rather Be Reading – “I applaud Eulberg for giving a lot more depth to her storylines and characters this time around.”

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April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.
About April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

Comments

  1. Arrgh, I hate fat shaming, and fat shaming your mom…this book I will definitely not try.

    Btw, when did you change your blog look? I’m here after a long time and everything looks so different, nice tho 🙂

  2. LOL at Taylor Riggins! Too bad you didn’t like this one. I can completely see your point. I don’t think I would like the way she treats her mother either. Great review, April!

  3. I was really disappointed in this book, too, April. And I thought the same thing about Lexi’s “Great Personality.”

    And Lexi was so annoying about her mother’s weight. It felt like her mom gained all the weight because she was upset with the divorce. It was emotional eating, I think, because her mother was sooo upset. And then Lexi’s leaving healthy eating flyers around. Lame.

    Also, I hated that speech that Lexi gave at the end at the beauty pageant. You know, when she dresses all up in beauty contestant gear, but overly exaggerated. Ugh. I just hated that.

    But I did like The Lonely Hearts Club and Prom & Prejudice, so I would also look into Eulberg’s other books.

  4. This still totally breaks my heart. I wanted this to be awesome. 🙁 Um, yeah, I do not see her great personality. Well, since I have a copy I will try it someday. Hopefully it goes better with me. I suppose we shall see, shan’t we?

  5. YES. Thanks for putting into words what’s been bothering me about this book! I’m currently reading it, but I’m struggling to get through it because so much about Lexi annoys me. I definitely don’t see her “great personality,” and all the body shaming in general is awful. When she’s not looking down on her mom, she’s deriding other girls for being skinny. Blech.

    Still not sure if I’ll be finishing this or not.

  6. I thought this book was pretty average and forgettable. I agree about Cam having the cooler personality, I loved how she called Lexi out on her BS.

    I remember thinking Lexi was stupid for being so ashamed by her mother’s weight. But you wouldn’t ignore cancer or some other life-threatening disease so I don’t think ignoring obesity is the way to go, either. Maybe Lexi didn’t go about it in the right way, but I think she should absolutely be encouraging her mother to eat better and exercise. I’m studying to be registered dietician (and I had a morbidly obese mother growing up) so I see the terrible effects of obesity on a regular basis and I probably have a different view of it than the average person.

  7. I think I’m going to have to skip this one. Fat shaming is a no-no. I mean, yeah, I get it. I was embarrassed by my mom in high school too (but not because of her phsyique, more because she was the mom who’d drive by and shout “I love you, sweetie! Make good choices!”). I could probably get over that since teens tend to be, you know, kind of self-centered and not too observant of other people’s (particularly adults) feelings. But the after school special life lessons speeches are a big no-no. I mean, who actually does that stuff?

  8. I don’t think you took the book too seriously at all-thanks for calling out these negative aspects!

  9. Aw, I’m sorry you ended up being disappointed. This sounded like a cute and fluffy read, but I’d probably be bothered by the fat-shaming (esp towards her mom) and a few of the other things you mentioned as well.

    Wendy @ The Midnight Garden

  10. I came across this book and thought, meh. Now I know I was right. lol 🙂

  11. Actually, despite what you perceived as this book’s shortcomings, it sounds like something I’d really enjoy. I’ll keep in mind to not take it so seriously though. Thanks for the review!