Shouting through clown horns and eating an abundance of cheese in…What’s A Girl Gotta Do? by Holly Bourne

Considering how excited I was to get this book early (Waterstones started selling it before release date, I didn’t have an ARC), it’s a bit ironic that I started actually reading it ON the release day.

Either way, I have it and I’ve read it so here we are. 

Let’s talk about What’s A Girl Gotta Do?

(I forgot to take a separate review photo so here’s my very chuffed face when I got my hands on this early. Enjoy.)

Title: What’s A Girl Gotta Do?

Author: Holly Bourne

Publisher: Usborne

Series Status: The 3rd book in the Spinster Club trilogy (+ a novella on the way)

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Feminism

Number of Pages:  419

(Found on back cover and Goodreads)

HOW TO START A FEMINIST REVOLUTION:

1. Call out anything that is unfair on one gender

2. Don’t call out the same thing twice (so you can sleep and breathe)

3. Always try to keep it funny

4. Don’t let anything slide. Even when you start to break…

Lottie’s determined to change the world with her #Vagilante vlog. Shame the trolls have other ideas…

I just…ugh. So many emotions.

I felt like sludge by the end of this book. In the best possible way.

Let me explain:

Holly Bourne has this wonderful way of making Lottie, Amber and Evie seem like real people. People you can – and are – friends with. So reading this book…well, I felt like I was going through all this with our dear Lottie. Which meant one hell of an emotional rollercoaster ride.

So when I read the second half of this book in one sitting and really felt everything, by the end I felt like sludge. Just this ball of gooey mess that didn’t quite know which emotion to feel. You could have poked me and depending where it hit, I’d have either gone into a rant about anything and everything…or cried for Lottie out of both overwhelming sadness and happiness. Yes, at the same time.

In other words, I was broken. Which is a good thing, because it meant this book really hit me hard. It’s definitely a story that will stick with me.

Now, this book is very much about Feminism. And I loved it. There’s so many positive messages spread around this book. But even without the feminism, there’s still things to be learnt from this book. Reading about how to cope with college work pressure. Or even the pressure of parents expecting you to do well. And how important friendships are. And, how the quote below very rightly says, our harshest judges are most often ourselves, not other people.

“I was beginning to realise, the biggest hurdle to overcome was the hurdle of yourself.”

I just love how encouraging this story is. It’s fighting feminism but in a fun way (think clown horns and cheesy snacks). And yet it shows that even when you’re not being particularly aggravating, it can be really REALLY difficult because many people will find a reason to argue. It shows the difficulties…and then focuses on the positives. Because that’s what we need to remember. When things are hard, even the smallest reason to put a smile on your face is completely 100% worth it.

There did come a time when the amount of arguing became a bit exhausting and tedious…but I didn’t have much of a problem with that, because THAT’S THE POINT. It made me feel what Lottie felt at that point in the story, and like everything in this book, it’s important.

Somehow, a book full of heavy topics felt like a lighthearted read. And I honestly think that’s why it’ll stick with me. It wasn’t a murky swamp I had to trudge through to get to the other side. It was a quick jump into the life of a very ambitious teenager who, quite frankly, I want to be more like. If I could be even the slightest bit like Lottie…well, I’d be thrilled.  

I’m glad there’s a novella coming out. There were a few loose ties in this book, and I know if there wasn’t a novella, I’d have probably kicked up a fuss about that. Because I can’t NOT know.

If you want to read about important topics with a fun twist and an absolutely amazing friendship between three girls, I suggest you read this series. I don’t think I’ve done it justice with this review – or ANY of my reviews to be honest – but I hope I encouraged someone to pick it up. I’ve never read anything like it before, and it’s one of those series I’ll look back on and thank myself for reading. And I thank Holly Bourne for writing these wonderful books, because I know they’ll stay in my mind forever.

Rated 4.5/5 stars

Amazon

[Available in Kindle and Paperback Edition]

Reviews of the previous books:

Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne

How Hard Can Love Be? by Holly Bourne

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Share your thoughts!

Have you read this book? What did you think?

Who’s your favourite character?

Have you read the previous books? Thoughts?

If you haven’t read this book (or series) do you plan to?

Let me know in the comments!

Until next time…

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