Review: Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality by Elizabeth Eulberg

Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality

By: Elizabeth Eulberg

Pub. Date: March 1, 2013

Publisher: Point

Pages: 272

Source: Netgalley

A hilarious new novel from Elizabeth Eulberg about taking the wall out of the wallflower so she can bloom.

Don't mess with a girl with a great personality!

Everybody loves Lexi. She's popular, smart, funny...but she's never been one of those girls, the pretty ones who get all the attention from guys. And on top of that, her seven-year-old sister, Mackenzie, is a terror in a tiara, and part of a pageant scene where she gets praised for her beauty (with the help of fake hair and tons of makeup).

Lexi's sick of it. She's sick of being the girl who hears about kisses instead of getting them. She's sick of being ignored by her longtime crush, Logan. She's sick of being taken for granted by her pageant-obsessed mom. And she's sick of having all her family's money wasted on a phony pursuit of perfection.

The time has come for Lexi to step out from the sidelines. Girls without great personalities aren't going to know what hit them. Because Lexi's going to play the beauty game - and she's in it to win it.

I am a huge, huge fan of Elizabeth Eulberg and Take a Bow was one of my favorite books that I read last year. When I saw Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality on netgalley, I was so excited to start reading it. With a title like that, how could it not be good? Revenge was a fun, quick read and it was everything that I was expecting and more!

I loved Lexi as a character. In her family, she isn't considered the pretty one, that title is reserved for her 7 year old beauty queen sister (think Toddlers & Tiaras). She is known as the girl with the great personality and she is ok with that. She is used to never being noticed, that is until one day when she decides to do a makeover. She starts to wear tighter fitting clothing, changes her hairstyles and wears make-up. Now everyone is noticing her, including some of the cutest boys in school. In an instant, Lexi's life is changed. When it comes down to it, is fake friends really worth it? The boys and girls only want to talk to her because of how she looks and Lexi isn't sure if that is the life she wants.

Even though this story is focused on teenagers, everyone can relate to it. We live in a society where looks matter above anything else. But there is so much more to a person then how they look on the outside. What matters is who they are on the inside. Revenge has a great message for teenagers, and I think it would make a fantastic book for my school book club!

Another aspect of this book is beauty pageants. There is a huge debate in this country about little girl beauty queens. Personally, I think these pageants are disgusting. Those parts in the story were really hard to read because it is something that I feel strongly against. I think we got a realistic portrayal of what happens behind the scenes, about the parents who support this, and the girls who participate in it. I felt so bad for Mackenzie. She can be such a terror, but then you realize that she is a 7 year old who is forced to act like an adult which is one of the reasons that I am so against this. Children should be children, and nothing else. These pageants force them to grow up so much quicker then they should.

I really enjoyed this story and can not wait to read Eulberg's next book!