Year 6, Books 20 and 21

20. Why Girls are Weird by Pamela Ribon
21. Why Moms are Weird by Pamela Ribon

I’m not sure why it took me so long to read these books. I’ve been reading the authors blog for years. I finally read her third book Going in Circles earlier this year and really enjoyed it, so after taking advantage of the Groupon for Barnes and Noble I bought these two books to read on my Nook.

I loved Why Girls are Weird. I can’t remember the last book that I read that I enjoyed this much. I didn’t want to put it down and every time I had to I couldn’t wait to keep reading it. The story centers around a woman named Anna who is in her 20s. After breaking up with her long time boyfriend, she starts an online journal about their relationship together as if they had never broken up and winds up amassing a large following. (Note this book was written in the early 2000’s before blogging became mainstream and what it is today). She specifically winds up in contact with two of her fans and the story delves into her relationships with these two people as well as the people who are actually present in her real life. She struggles to balance the falsehoods she has told online with the person she really is. It was a fun read with a story that I found really engaging. I give it 8 out of 10.

I did not like Why Moms are Weird nearly as much as Ribon’s other two novels. The story is about Benny, a girl who has moved across the country from her family to California. She returns back East to help take care of her mother after she is injured in an automobile accident. Her sister lives with her mother, but is too unreliable to take care of their mom. Upon arriving she discovers that her mother and sister have become hoarders, so she attempts to help clean up the house and put their lives back together. The book is a lot about their history and their relationships as well as Benny’s relationships with a boy she met a week before leaving California and the man she hires to help clean up the house. I started out enjoying the book quite a bit, but eventually grew annoyed by the characters and felt like the relationships between the protagonist and her two male suitors were not realistic. They both seemed to happen too fast and I couldn’t figure out why the feelings were supposedly so deep after barely knowing each other. I give it 6 out of 10.