Not That Kind of Girl by Siobhan Vivian

3 1/2 stars for this coming of age YA novel, January 7, 2011

 This novel is about choices -- the choices that a teen girl makes during her senior year of high school when she begins to make decisions that are going to affect the rest of her life. What kind of girl does Natalie want to be vs. what kind of girl do OTHERS think Natalie is? That conundrum is at the heart of this new YA novel by an author who obviously understands the pressure and tension that teenagers deal with every day at high school as well as with extracurricular activities


Natalie wants to be known as a girl who has her act together, who knows what she wants, and who gets it. She has a plan and finally during her senior year, it's all coming together. She's elected, barely, to the role of Student Council President -- only the 9th girl to have that honor in the history of the school. Though others might think so, I didn't feel the novel was about feminism or about the role of women in society. I felt it was about Natalie finding out that all those plans she had and all those high expectations -- of herself and of others -- might need to be reassessed and reevaluated as circumstances changed.

Natalie isn't very popular and she's quite controlling and bossy -- but she can't control herself where Connor is concerned and decides to begin a secret relationship with him. Why secret? Well she doesn't want to be sidetracked by having a boyfriend AND she doesn't want to be gossiped about at school. Not sure why she is too immature to understand that having a boyfriend doesn't automatically make you a slut, but that's her fear. Themes of sexuality and double standards are reiterated over and over in this novel, but the person who causes the most trouble for Natalie is Natalie. She has difficulty with insight -- into herself and into others. She doesn't seem to have the ability to do an honest self appraisal so concerned is she with outward appearances. She doesn't know what she feels about what she's doing or make much attempt to understand her best friend Autumn or the boy she's sneaking around to see only late at night. For a girl who supposedly was going places, she seemed to be running in circles around the dilemmas she created by trying to dictate to others the nature of their relationship with her. She's the kind of girl who wanted everyone to think well of her, and they did because they didn't really even know HER, just knew that she was a responsible girl who got things done. As long as she was doing that, and staying out of trouble, she received praise. Later on in the novel when things sort of fell apart for her, those same people didn't seem to be able to give her those same positive attributes. Her mistake? Being a teenage girl and having feelings and not knowing how to handle them because she'd spent so many years repressing them.


The ending seemed a little rushed and too pat with everything going nicely back into place after the shift that occurred when Natalie sort of "fell off the wagon" but I think teens will enjoy reading about Natalie's senior year and how she fixed her lapses in judgment. One thing to keep in mind is that most of the time mistakes in adolescence aren't permanently life altering, but some CAN be. The tricky part, and the one that teens find most difficult to master, is knowing which are and which aren't!


Teen girls looking for a fast-paced, thought-provoking read about social situations and high school will definitely like this.


Ms C.