Getting the Girl by Susan Juby (Review by Karilee)

Susan Juby's blog is going up later today, so make sure to stop by!

Synopsis:
Meet Sherman Mack. Short. Nerdy. An Amateur P.I. who’s prepared to do anything for Dini Trioli.

Nobody knows who began it, but every girl at Harewood Tech fears being D-listed, a ritual that would wipe her off the social map forever. When Sherman believes Dini is in danger of being D-listed, he launches a full-scale investigation to uncover who is responsible. One thing is for sure: Sherman Mack is on the case. And he’s not giving up.

Part comedy, part mystery, and with all of Juby’s trademark tongue-in-cheek humor, Getting the Girl takes on one of the cruelest aspects of high school – how easy it is for an entire school to turn on someone, and how hard it is being the only one to fight back.

Review:
Getting the Girl, first and foremost, has a fantastic central character. He’s a chivalrous, wannabe lady’s man who will stop at nothing to defend a girl’s honor. (Did I mention he’s an aspiring chef?) However, despite his valiant efforts, he often finds himself in need of being rescued by the very females he tries to defend. As if the nerdy (and completely lovable) protagonist isn’t enough to keep the reader’s attention, the book is, at some points, laugh-out-loud funny, while it easily becomes serious, addressing the stupidity and effect of the social atmosphere of high school on girls and guys both. While it lacks the certain “edge-of-your-seat-excitement” many mystery novels have, it easily kept my attention and had me trying to figure out exactly who was responsible for the “defiling.”

Although I thoroughly enjoyed Getting the Girl I was slightly disappointed with the solving of the mystery. By the time the novel comes to a close, the reader still doesn’t have sufficient evidence to even begin to guess who is guilty. Instead, the main suspects have been ruled out.

While the eventual uncovering of the defiler is interesting and in no way compromised the overall attitude I have towards the book, I felt as though the book wasn’t really a “mystery.” Rather it was just a comedy of errors and feeble attempts at private investigation. (As a fair statement, I must nearly always find something I don’t like in a book. Therefore, the fact that the only thing that stuck out was that it didn’t really stay in keeping with the genre means something.)

All in all I had a great time reading Getting the Girl and I especially enjoyed Juby's witty humor. I would definitely recommend reading Getting the Girl and I can't wait to read more of Juby's work!

Thanks for reading,
Karilee

P.S. – Seeing as I have an odd obsession with music, for every book I read I usually find a song that either reminds me of the book or that I just listened to frequently while I was reading it. I’d like to share them with you by putting them in my reviews. For Getting the Girl, the song was “The Great Beyond” by R.E.M. From now on I’ll just put them right before my signature, listing title then artist.

To purchase Getting the Girl by Susan Juby, click here.