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Things a Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls

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booksfemme's review

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4.0

4.5 stars!

Absolutely loved this novel. Longer review soon hopefully!

genstrong's review

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Surprisingly delightful. I enjoyed reading this as an adult. Funny, clever and heart warming. It felt historically accurate while relating to a contemporary reader.

bookish_redpanda15's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I liked lots of things about this book, the characters are interesting, you learn about the timeline without it being preachy and the relationships are good. However. It felt like two stories, the two threads don't interact. Evelyn and Teddy is probably my least favourite, but I love the stuff with her indignation and her family at the start, and all the stuff towards the end - it does an excellent job of portraying the war and is really poignant. I wanted to know what they did next though especially in relation to Teddy. (Wow that's a hard one to discuss without spoilers!) I much preferred the tale of May and Nell, or more specifically, Nell. May is a naive and self involved so and so half the time! Nell is excellent, and the story of her family and her relationships would have been great for me on their own. While not perfect, I really liked her character and her growth. I loved her early interactions with May and her discoveries about herself toward the end. I think I'd have quite liked her story, with May as a side character, more fleshed out as the book on its own. A good read, but nothing stellar for me sadly, it's a bit let down by telling two stories that are only related by timeline and therefore don't interact enough to be relevant.

elliejmatthews's review

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emotional inspiring lighthearted sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

titanic's review against another edition

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2.0

[ 2.5 stars ] SPOILERS?

i’m not a fan of historical fiction, so why i picked this up i have no clue.

but i truly dislike may; the nerve of her asking nell (the girl she supposedly loves) to not take the only job she could get during a time of war when her family is freezing & starving, because she doesn’t want her making bombs because she’s a quaker and then getting mad when she does take the job. disgusting. death to may and the higher class, hmph.

also lov u teddy, mwah!