Blog Tour/ Book Review: Awkward by Marni Bates

By: Marni Bates

Published by: Kensginton Publishing Corp.

Released on: January 1st, 2012

Source: book from publisher for blog tour/review

4.5 stars: I Really Enjoyed It!

Purchase from: Amazon

Mackenzie Wellesley has spent her life avoiding the spotlight. At Smith High, she's the awkward junior people only notice when they need help with homework. Until she sends a burly football player flying with her massive backpack and makes a disastrous - not to mention unwelcome - attempt at CPR. Before the day is out, the whole fiasco explodes on YouTube. And then the strangest thing happens. Suddenly, Mackenzie is an Internet sensation, with four million hits and counting. Sucked into a whirlwind of rock stars, paparazzi, and free designer clothes, she even catches the eye of the most popular guy at school. And that's when life gets really interesting... quoted from Goodreads

What a fabulous debut! Marni Bates's Awkward is anything but that. This is a book that's charming, cute, relatable, fun, and completely enjoyable. The entire book is full of those fabulous (insert sarcasm) high school situations that we all love to look back on, romance, well written characters and a protagonist that I completely loved getting to know. I'll be honest, I wasn't sure what to except when I first sat down to read this book, and I definitely wasn't excepting to love this story as much as I did. I'm a contemporary snob. Laugh all you want, it's true. I'm an extremely picky reader when it comes to this genre and after reading this book, I'm going to be reading more of Marni's books in the feature. Let me tell you a bit about Mackenzie. 

She's the girl that all of us can relate to on some level, and that's one of the big draws for me with her story. Before I get further into what I loved about her, let me give you a brief back ground on her. Mackenzie is the type of girl who wants to blend and stay invisible at school. She's not really dwelt with her dad cheating on her mom that occurred 12 yrs prior to the start of the story, she's a loyal friend, snarky, incredibly smart, tutors a few kids from the popular crowd, and at the start of the story she's someone who never stands up for herself. I should say she's also a little bit dense when it comes to romance and relationships, and normally that irritates me with characters, but for some reason with Mackenzie I didn't give it a second thought. Here's what I loved about her character.

After an unfortunate event she becomes an over night You Tube sensation. She's thrust into the spotlight, has gone from an invisible and someone who's picked on to the most popular person at school, now she has money, designer clothes and becomes close friends with the lead signer of a popular band that features the you tube video on her in one of their songs. There's much more to this story than this and the thing I loved about Mackenzie is none of this changed her. In fact, she wanted it to all go away so she could go back to being that invisible girl she thought she was. They funny thing is, she never really was. Through her close set of three friends Mackenzie learns to embrace who she is, to see herself for who she is and not for what she things she is. I loved that she's a girl who fought against believing in who she should be and who she is. 

Aside from Mackenzie's realistic portrayal, are some fabulous secondary characters that really added to the richness of this story. I LOVED June and Corey, Mackenzie's best friends. Corey for me was someone I felt I got to know more than June. He's the fabulous gay best friend who's incredibly honest, sincere and always there for Mackenzie, while June is the more quiet friend who's always there to support here. Than there's the incredibly lovable Logan! I seriously adored his character and I have a feeling a few readers will be crushing him as much as Mackenzie. The thing I loved about Logan is his money, and his popularity didn't make him a shallow person. In fact he's someone a few readers will also find relatable and I loved that he treated Mackenzie like a normal person. Their romance/chemistry is well written and drawn out. Did I mention he's also a hockey player?

Marni's writing is light hearted, enjoyable, and incredibly engaging. I didn't except to sit down and read this book in one sitting like I did. I enjoyed spending time with this story and getting to know Mackenzie. Awkward is a book that everyone will be able to take something from it and relate to some part of Mackenzie's experiences. It's one of those quiet, well written, fun books you kick back with at the end of a hard day with or a take out side on a sunny afternoon to read, and before you know it you've completely fall in love with it. This story had me grinning the whole time I was reading and even after I was done with it. If you're looking for one of those feel good books to get lost in for a bit I'd recommend picking up AWKWARD! 

Be sure to check out the rest of the blog tour stops here.