Review: Adorkable by Sarra Manning

Adorkable by Sarra Manning
Publisher: Atom
Publication date: May 24th 2012
My rating: 4 Stars

 

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

Jeane Smith's a blogger, a 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 making out? This novel is about an unlikely relationship, but it's also about roller derby, dogs on skateboards, dogs on surfboards, dogs doing any form of extreme sport, old skool hip hop, riding your bike downhill really fast, riot grrrl, those boys you want to kiss but punch in the face at the same time, dyeing your hair ridiculous colors just because you can, stitch 'n' bitch, the songs that make you dance, the songs that make you cry, being a bad ass, cake, love, death, and everything in between.

Adorkable was witty and sweet romance, between two total social opposites.  It’s always such fun reading about opposites clashing, and then falling for each other in spite of their differences.   

Jeane Smith and Michael Lee couldn’t be further apart in their social spheres.  She’s the queen of dork and bizarre, and he’s the popular king of normal.  Jeane’s proud of her dorkdom and looks down on anyone mainstream.  She’s a popular blogger with her own “life-brand,” Adorkable, with a huge online following.  Both Jeane and Michael look down their nose at each other.  Unfortunately, Michael’s girlfriend, Scarlett and Jeane’s boyfriend Barney fancy each other and soon their common problem thrusts their lives together in an unexpected way.  There is nothing but animosity between Michael and Jeane, but for whatever reasons opposites attract, they are suddenly stealing passionate kisses whenever and wherever they can.

Michael and Jeane want to keep their “snogging” (Brit speak for kissing) to themselves for fear of outside opinions.  Plus, they barely like each other.  But after spending time together, they begin to see another side to one another, and they just click.  Well, they more than just clicked.  They sizzled and burned!

This romance had me laughing and smiling all the way through.  Michael was a sweetheart.  There were moments when I’d get mad at him for mentally calling Jeane a bitch, but then he’d turn around and do something heartfelt and lovely.  The same with Jeane, she would act like a witch, coming off so judgmental sometimes, but then she’d explain herself, and it wasn’t anything like you thought.  I couldn’t stay mad at her.  Plus, when you see how sad and lonely her life was, the fact she still functioned was a miracle.  These two had a passion and intensity with each other they didn’t share with anyone else:

Jeane was the ninth girl I’d kissed but her kisses were nothing like the other eight girls’ kisses. She tasted sweet and salty and she kissed like her life depended on it. She kissed me like I was going off to war or it was the end of the bloody world.

I had loads of fun with this story, and part of that was all the Brit speak:  jumpers, snogging, stroppy girls, blathering, and jumble sales.   I now have a hankering for Haribo, which I’ve found out from my lovely Goodreads friends is a type of jelly/gummy candy. 

Sarra Manning’s writing style was clever and entertaining and I plan on reading more from this author soon.