This book took me a bit to get into. I didn’t really like the beginning. Jamie’s hatred of Angeline (for no reason other than her prettiness) and weird, dysfunctional friendship with Isabella (trying to push her down the stairs???) had me grimacing.

I hated how Jamie’s character was so jealous and shallow all of the time. It’s another middle grade book about insecure girls tearing down other girls to make themselves feel better. I think we can do better than that. I prefer books with meaningful female relationships.

However, I did like the ending. The book wraps up nicely and there is a teeny tiny glimmer of a message by the end, that (doesn’t redeem the whole book, but) negates some of the awfulness in the beginning.
There were some funny bits, but I wouldn’t say the whole thing was funny, mostly because there were so many times Jamie was mean out of jealousy. I did like the silly illustrations and some of the lists.

A solid two-star book for me, but the ending bumped it up to three-stars.