Satan Reviews- Book: The Manifesto on How to be Interesting

The Manifesto on How to be Interesting

Holly Bourne

Usborne Publishing

This is quite short and contains a couple of spoilers. And no italics/ strike text. Somehow.



I don't actually know if I liked this book. Sure, I finished it and it was hard to put down.

This is one of those books where an adult author really tries to write from the perspective of a teenager, but kinda fails. It could be because Bree isn't "like other girls" (or something similar that's also a tiny bit sexist and pretentious) because she likes books or something... *slams head on a table* I didn't really care for Bree. She doesn't really understand that even though the "Perfect Posse" (or something really close to the name of the popular group in Mean Girls because this was Mean Girls in book form)are complete arseholes, they're still people who can emote. How did she not realise that her actions would really hurt people?

Also, is my school the only secondary school that doesn't have cliques like the ones you see in fiction? How do schools function with them? Because they take over school life apparently and the amount of bullying caused by the popular cliques would get them into a lot of trouble.
In this novel, there's a website that probably would have been taken down by the police if it existed because cyber bullying is technically illegal in England, where the book is set. And the people who used it a lot would probably end up with criminal charges if what was said on the website got out of hand. I'm pretty sure it would have done at some point.

And in every good novel we need romance- especially if it's annoying and cliche. The whole Bree and the English teacher thing was ew. Just ew. If there was a message with that I missed it because I was too grossed out to notice. *Grimaces from the thought of it* Although, the ways the boys acted I thought was scarily realistic. As in most of the teenage boys I know act like this and I want to punch them in the face. And it annoys me that Bree never used her popularity to spread feminism; she had the perfect chance. She could have been like: "yo, Jassy-min. Hugo sucks. Dump him". And then half the drama that happens later could have been avoided.

I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars.