DNF: Adorkable by Sarra Manning

Adorkable by Sarra Manning
Published by: Atom on May 24, 2012
Genre: Drama, Romance
Pages: 387
Buy on Amazon • Book Details
Rating: Did Not Finish

Welcome to the dorkside. It's going to be a bumpy ride...

Jeane Smith's a blogger, a dreamer, a dare-to-dreamer, a jumble sale queen, CEO of her own lifestyle brand and has half a million followers on twitter.

Michael Lee's a star of school, stage and playing field. A golden boy in a Jack Wills hoodie.

They have nothing in common but a pair of cheating exes. So why can't they stop snogging?

I can’t remember the last time I hated a book character so much. (I did kind of hate the book, but mostly because I loathed the character.)

What’s sad, is that there are so many reasons I could have loved this book. I’m a dork myself, so I’m all for “pro dork” books. I like high school romances. I like “popular guy falls in love with nerdy girl” books. I love books about blogging, bloggers, and social media. I love all of those things.

What I don’t like are massive bitches. And that’s exactly what Jeane Smith is. A massive, MASSIVE bitch. I have never read about a character in a book that is this massively mean.

Here’s my problem: I’m all for dorks. I’m all for being different. I’m all for going against the norm. That’s basically what I am and what I do. What I’m NOT for is insulting and hating on people just because they’re not like you, and that’s what Jeane is all about. She’s the dork version of the queen bee high school bitch. That queen bee hates on everyone who doesn’t wear the cool clothes and go to the cool parties and date the cool guys. In contrast, Jeane hates on everyone who DOES do those things, even if they’re a perfectly nice person. She just hates their very existence. Her motto is basically: if you don’t go against what’s cool, then you’re my enemy. That is NOT okay with me.

Another thing that bugged me was how two-sided Jeane was. Here’s a quote from Michael:

[Jeane was] a girl who was friendlier on the internet than she was in the flesh.

“everyone pretends to be someon else on the internet and that Jeane’s friendliness was only Wi-Fi-enabled.”

It made her look so two-faced. She’s quite social and friendly to anyone who approaches her on Twitter. But if you approach her in real life, she will stare you down and yell at you to get the fuck away from her (I swear that’s not even much of an exaggeration). Example, starting with a line from Michael:

“Oh, I was just passing and I thought I’d come over and say hi.”
“Why the hell would you want to do that?” I asked very coldly. “Did you think that because we had one unpleasant conversation at the jumble sale we’re now on hello terms? We’re not. We have nothing to talk about so just, like, go away.”

Michael was being NICE. He wasn’t being sarcastic or mean, he literally just came over to say hi and she completely threw that in his face for no reason. Or, her reason is: because he wears designer clothes and people like him. And she then goes on to make tons and tons of assumptions about him just based on how he dresses and who his friends are:

“That was the deal with the really good-looking boys: they automatically assume you were pining and panting for them and wouldn’t be satisfied until you’d had their babies, no matter how ugly their personalities might be.”

And another thing I hated was how she treated her boyfriend Barney like a pet or a follower. She knew that they had zero chemistry and she hated kissing him. He’s not really her boyfriend, he’s like a doll to her. She dresses him up and teaches him to act in certain ways. This really comes out when they kind of break up and she rages about how he betrayed her because she gave him the ‘gift’ of attention and a social life:

“I’d raised Barney in my own image: he was on my side, on the side of dorks, on the side of all that was good and pure.”

“[Barney] leeched my cool like he was trying to jump-start a car battery.”

“You were nothing before me,” I screamed finally, as Barney cowered where he stood. “And you’ll be nothing again, just a spotty geek immersed in World of Warcraft with no social skills.”

That last line in particular sounds EXACTLY like something that would come out of an exaggerated queen bee bitch’s mouth. Literally. It sounds like Regina George from Mean Girls.

And after she was done with Barney she wrote a massive hate post about him on her blog where she named him. That’s a great example of what well known and respected bloggers SHOULDN’T DO. You don’t use your popularity as a platform to voice your hate for an individual, and that’s exactly what she did.

Above all, I was disgusted with Jeane. I couldn’t believe how she treated people! That’s not what I’m all about at all. Sure, stick up for dorks, but respect the non-dorks too! I don’t want to read a book about a character being a total bitch to anyone who’s not like her… which is funny, because she claims to be all about supporting people who are different.. but at the same time there are also certain things you explicitly CANNOT be in her mind.

After about 60 pages of this, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I think Jeane might be my most hated character in all of literature. She’s exactly like those evil, manipulative queen bee bitches, but instead of lashing out at people for being “unpopular”, she lashes out at them for being “popular”. That makes her no better. She’s mean, bitchy, manipulative, and thinks she’s so high and mighty. I couldn’t stand this character so much that I physically could not bring myself to finish the rest of the book. Even if she changes at the end, I didn’t care. I didn’t WANT to sympathize with her or be glad that she changed. I don’t want to feel any good or nice feelings about this character ever. She doesn’t deserve my forgiveness for being a massive bitch at the beginning.

(Note: I have no idea if she even does change at the end or not, I’m just assuming she does.)

The Verdict