Book Review: The Manifesto on How to be Interesting by Holly Bourne

Title: The Manifesto on How to be Interesting
Author: Holly Bourne
Publisher: Usborne Publishing
Publishing Date: August 1st 2014
Length: 464 pages
Keywords: YA, contemporary, romance, friendship, transformation
Source: Publisher

Apparently I'm boring. A nobody. But that's all about to change. Because I am starting a project. Here. Now. For myself. And if you want to come along for the ride then you're very welcome.

Bree is a loser, a wannabe author who hides behind words. Most of the time she hates her life, her school, her never-there parents. So she writes.

But when she’s told she needs to start living a life worth writing about, The Manifesto on How to Be Interesting is born. Six steps on how to be interesting. Six steps that will see her infiltrate the popular set, fall in love with someone forbidden and make the biggest mistake of her life.

Summary by Goodreads

First impression: Unique story approach and a protagonist worth getting to know better. Holly Bourne introduces us to Bree, a quiet girl who is very intelligent and withdrawn. Soon she's going to change radically. In the beginning she has a fantastic relationship with her best friend Holdo. They watch movies together and hang out. They have a very trusting and intimate friendship that makes both their lives so much brighter. It is a friendship that I recognized as something very important for Bree's story. One that could've worked against the mean girl streak she's developing at some point. Unfortunately, Holly Bourne allowed Bree to completely neglect the great support I saw in their friendship and ditch Holdo for her fake new life.

Second glance: I can honestly say that I didn't like Bree anymore once she was caught in her plan to become popular at all costs. And all for the cause of her own curious social research for her writing. Her goal is to seduce Hugo and become friends with his girlfriend and their clique in order to observe their life and analyse their ways of being interesting and popular. I hated that everythigng was kind of an experiment for her and that she didn't really want to change her life the way she did because she wanted to live it that way. It all felt kind of fake and I couldn't but cringe at the sure future outcome and the unfairness towards the people she was deceiving.

What could've saved Bree's story for me wasn't present. A romance that I could enjoy and get lost in. In all her confusion and revenge I was hoping for Bree to find a person who would be so good for her that she could finally accept herself. Her relationship to her teacher is an prominent part of the story in order to distinguish and show readers the difference between fake and real Bree. But sadly I'm no big fan of reading about student teacher romances. Don't you find them kind of irritating, too?

Still, sometimes I even found myself engaging in Bree's transformation and hoped for the popular kids to actually like her so that she could establish an honest and kind friendship with them. Her manifesto changes the relationship to her parents as well and especially the bond between mother and daughter. The family part of Bree's story was probably my favourite because it was the one most real and emotional.

Holly Bourne's writing was skillful and that's why I'll definitely read her debut novel SOULMATES soon.

3/5 *** THE MANIFESTO ON HOW TO BE INTERESTING - A very delicate thought experiment for every reader!

THE MANIFESTO ON HOW TO BE INTERESTING explores the depths of a teenager's feelings of failure and unacceptance. How important is popularity and success for a young adult? And how much is someone willing to sacrifice of what's been good in his or her life if they can get something supposedly better? Would you be willing to hurt the people you love in order to reach that goal?

"But successful people - like, the really-made-it ones - stay quiet until it's finished. Bree didn't do failure, not well anyway. Therefore she was keeping quiet until she knew for sure that her plan was foolproof." ― p. 68

THE MANIFESTO ON HOW TO BE INTERESTING you might enjoy MY HEART AND OTHER BLACK HOLES by Jasmine Warga, SOLITAIRE by Alice Oseman or THE WORST GIRLFRIEND IN THE WORLD by Sarra Manning.

* Have you read SOULMATES? This is Holly Bourne's debut.

* Read an excerpt of THE MANIFESTO ON HOW TO BE INTERESTING here.

* For more information about Holly Bourne and her books visit www.hollybourne.co.uk.

* Thanks to Usborne Publishing for sending me a copy of THE MANIFESTO ON HOW TO BE INTERESTING for review!