Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality by Elizabeth Eulberg

Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality by Elizabeth Eulberg

Published by Point; March 1, 2013

Hardcover, 272 pages

Borrowed from library

A hilarious new novel from Elizabeth Eulberg about taking the wall out of the wallflower so she can bloom.

Don't mess with a girl with a great personality!

Everybody loves Lexi. She's popular, smart, funny...but she's never been one of those girls, the pretty ones who get all the attention from guys. And on top of that, her seven-year-old sister, Mackenzie, is a terror in a tiara, and part of a pageant scene where she gets praised for her beauty (with the help of fake hair and tons of makeup).

Lexi's sick of it. She's sick of being the girl who hears about kisses instead of getting them. She's sick of being ignored by her longtime crush, Logan. She's sick of being taken for granted by her pageant-obsessed mom. And she's sick of having all her family's money wasted on a phony pursuit of perfection.

The time has come for Lexi to step out from the sidelines. Girls without great personalities aren't going to know what hit them. Because Lexi's going to play the beauty game - and she's in it to win it.

- Description from Goodreads.com

I have always been fascinated by the world of beauty pageants. In my household, I'm known for plopping down in front of the telly for hour-long marathons of Toddler & Tiaras. The drama. The humiliation. Honestly, what more could you ask for in reality television? So I suppose you could say I was excited to jump into beauty pageants on page. 

Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality tells the story of Lexi, a teenage girl over with being just average. So starts her superficial mission to completely reinvent herself as a girl with more than just a 'great personality'. To be frank with you, I'm a bit tired of all this superficial makeover nonsense. Because in all the books I've read with this, the characters are mostly all whiney and annoying. No exception here. However, with Lexi, you can't help but feel bad for her. She comes from a neglectful family and her mum fails to understand and respect her needs, instead focusing her attention on younger sister, Mackenzie, a beauty queen. No wonder Lexi feels she needs to give herself a makeover to gain attention. 

+ Pluses

• Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality is a fast and funny read, sticking true to Elizabeth's bubbly and hilarious character.
• The beauty pageant theme is unique - you don't see it in Young Adult often.
• I really enjoyed the secondary characters: Benny, Cam and Taylor. They really shined through.
• It's easy to relate to Lexi's feeling of neglect and her want of being a gorgeous, noticeable girl.

-Minuses

• Lexi is whiney and annoying. No extra points for this even if I can understand where she's coming from.
• The references to fatness and beauty made me very uncomfortable. Not sure what the message is here.
• Is there a mental love triangle here? Because there certainly seems to be the same indecisiveness. Make up your mind, girl! Logan or Taylor? You can only pick one. Geez!
• The ending fell flat for me. It did not feel complete and some loose ends were left. 

Still, this book was pretty