Book Review: Seattle Girl

Book: Seattle Girl

Genre: Chick Lit/ YA Fiction/ Romance

Author: Lucy Kevin

Cover critique:

The cover holds your attention in a second with its striking colours, contrasting black and white on a sharp blue background. The girl on the cover standing in stylish clothes holding a purple umbrella and a matching purse, displaying a lot of attitude in her body language and posture, works very well with the title of the book, “Seattle girl”. I simply love the cover! It is very appealing and eye-catching!

Review:

The story revolves around Georgia Fulton who has lots of dreams and aspirations as usual like any other youngster of her age. She is an ambitious, feisty and smart lady who wants to host her own radio show one day and make a career out of it. As they say, nothing comes easy in life; so she goes through many rough patches, like doing unpaid internships and working as a part-time cocktail waitress at a bar, to keep struggling and hoping that one day she will make it to the finish line and cross all barriers on this bumpy road of life! As Georgia says,

“I hate to admit this, but I wanted to get on the air so bad that I pretty much wished and prayed for the other DJs to get sick.....Anything to get to sit in the driver’s seat. Anything to live my dream."

While on her way to become a future “Seattle Girl” (the name of her own radio show), she encounters many men, who make her learn one thing or the other about adult relationships, dating pitfalls, the meaning of real love, pure lust and even herself! On the plus side, she has got the help of her loyal best friends, Diane (sexy blonde) and Seth (desperate gay) who stick by her side always. Well, I would not spoil it for you, so read it to find out how she deals with crazy, strange, embarrassing and even risky situations to become a woman with an identity of her own.

From the beginning till the end, the progression of the story is fast-paced, racing from one situation to another. The chapters are short and you keep turning pages to know what and who will Georgia confront now. The story is told from the perspective of the female protagonist and the writer makes good use of dialogues and witty lines to communicate the character of Georgia to the readers. She (the writer) hardly takes help from long and boring descriptions and keeps it more direct and personal all along. The secondary characters of Seth and Diane are also well-developed and save the story from getting dull and boring at times. The writer uses several pop culture and popular chick flick references to keep it current and trendy. The plot is quite predictable and one can easily figure out after reading first two chapters that with which guy she will finally end up (well, she dates like six guys to be sure!). The novel qualifies as a perfect beach read, with not much twists and turns to follow.

While the book slightly touches on the topic of generation gap, parent-child relationship, peer pressure and other general issues which a youngster goes through in his/her life, the novel fails to offer more in terms of plot development and a profound story with meaningful conflict leading to climax. I did not like that the book relied heavily on provocative sexual instances and harsh swearing and focused less on the romantic development between the hero and the heroine of the story.

The book uses a lot of American slang and obscene language as well as explicit situations like cage dance and exotic dance parties which came as a shock to me, because I am used to of chick lit books which use subtle hints of romance and comedy but have a great theme to keep the story intriguing, such as Katie Fforde’s “Highland Fling” or Jill Mansell’s “An offer you can’t refuse”.

The last chapters are abrupt as if the writer is short of time and rushing to end the story. I found the hero’s character half-heartedly sketched as it had the potential to be developed completely and left me wondering why the writer did not put a lot of work into it. Also, the book needs to be proof-read for several grammatical errors. Since it is Lucy’s earlier works and she has released three more novels (Falling Fast, Sparks Fly, Gabrielle) after “Seattle Girl”, I am hoping that they would offer much more improved work of her skills as a writer. Overall, the novel is a fine read.

Review Girl Rating: 7/10

"I would like to thank Lucy Kevin for sending me a free copy of her e-book, “Seattle Girl” for the purpose of reviewing it on my blog. To know the review rules and policy, click here. To buy this book, click here.” 

Other books by Lucy Kevin: