By the Book
by Amanda Sellet
Mary Porter-Malcolm has not been raised in the traditional way. Her parents are academics who have kept out technology and encouraged the reading of classics by every child they have. And, until this year, they have also had Mary enrolled at a small, charter school with an emphasis on Socratic seminars and independent study.
Now MPM must attend the local high school and learn how to navigate the halls of the campus and the social orders. Luckily, she at least knows how to avoid the scoundrels because she's read about all kinds.
When she meets three girls who need a little guidance to avoid one of those scoundrels, MPM is happy to join them and they are happy to return the favor by giving her every possible high school experience by the end of the year.
What MPM didn't expect was for that very first scoundrel to end up being the very person she might want to spend time with.
Final thoughts: This one was hard to get into because it felt like Sellet was trying her best to either show off all the classics that she had read and/or to try and convince her readers to go out and read them. So much of this book ended up being long discussions about book after book and all of the scoundrels contained in those pages. Even the first few chapters felt like Sellet was trying to write using the same language as those classic authors. That may have been a narrative choice as that language was toned down over the course of the book as MPM became more accustomed to modern interactions and kept her nose out of the books. The problem with that is that it makes it more difficult for the reader to get into the story from the start. The ending was also a little flat and sudden so, while Alex was a pretty cool character, we didn't get to know him and that brought the overall story down.
Rating: 2.5/5
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC
