Just a Girl, Standing in Front of a Boy, by Lucy-Anne Holmes

Gut Instinct Rating - 5

Characters - 4

Believability for type and topics - 4.5

Similarity to other books - 4

Writing Style - 4.5

Excitement Factor - 5

Story Line - 5

Title Relevance - 5

Cover art - 5

To read or not to read? Definitely pick this one up! This was well worth the recommendation and the read.

Movie? None (sadly - this would make a great romcom).

Goodreads users gave this book a 4.00. I think it was more deserving of a 4.62.

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Published on January 1, 2014

Pages: 403

Publishing Company: Sphere

Number of books by author: 5 (and I'm definitely going to add one of hers to my TBR)

Genre: Chick-Lit, Romance, Comedy, Adult Fiction

This was just a generally, well-written book. So, when I picked this up and placed it on my TBR, I really wasn't sure if I would survive a romance novel/chick-lit. I do like rom-coms, and I do like chick-flicks. However, I think they have to be done with great taste, and a lot of times, the equivalent of those books makes me want to vomit (ie: 50 Shades is just smut/trashy novel). I've never made it through some of the more famous authors who write in these categories, but I was really pleased with this. It was done in a simple, but relateable way.

I felt that the characters were a bit too mirrored, however. This was probably my biggest complaint about this book. Without getting into too much detail, the mother and daughters' lives were almost mirrored identically in so many ways; too many ways. Now, I know we all become our parents in a lot of ways, but there's also the bridge we cross on our own that makes us our own person. And this had that, but for the most part, it was like reading through two backgrounds and you could've guessed they were best friends, sisters, or a mom-daughter duo. Some may like this similarity, and it certainly didn't ruin the book for me. But I would've liked to see more about their relationship, and less about their background. It reduced some of that believability factor.

The drama illustrated here was not much different than other romance novels. It had the boy hurt girl, boy loves girl, girl loves boy type of setting. It had some really unique draws because of the mother-daughter relationship and it showed some interesting character flaws and traits between Phillipa and Jenny.

The writing style was almost perfect, but I really could've done without the texting conversations. Although they were slim, it wasn't necessary to have those text messages strewn out throughout various chapters. It became choppy and interrupted the general flow of things. A summary of those text messages could've been written in the same context as the rest of the book, but this is really just me nit-picking.

I was hooked to the story from the beginning, which is saying something. Without reading too much into the back flap, I had an idea of what was going to happen - which is pretty standard in rom-coms/chick-flicks. The story had a few interesting turns that I just didn't see coming, and some that were so subtle, you forgot that a particular relationship or dynamic existed until you had been reminded of it 100 pages later, which is kind of a nice "oh, yeah!" moment.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was subtle, sweet, a little feisty at times, and again - simple, which is what you want in a romance novel. Too many twists and turns can become a nightmare for a reader.