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A review by alybrighteyes
Amelia Westlake Was Never Here by Erin Gough
3.0
3.5 Stars
Amelia Westlake is a lesbian Pretty in Pink. The book is marketed as two girls who were the most unlikely duo fighting the sexual harassment by a school coach and other injustices done by their school’s teachers and administrators. What this book really is though is two girls learning that the people and institutions around them are more than the stereotypes and the preconceived notions the girls have. Truly a Pretty in Pink story, prom included.
That being said I found the characters in this book to be very flat. Harriet was the preppy good-two-shoes, EXCEPT… Will was the artistic, politically in the know, rebel, EXCEPT… Neither of the characters really got any backstory for WHY they were the way they were, other than Harriet being from a rich family and Will being from the “wrong side of the tracks”. It made it seem like they were less characters and more pawn in the author’s intent to show that a person is more than the stereotype seen at first glance by starting as a stereotype and then the author adding in bits to make them more into characters. Which is suppose in a book all about proving stereotyping wrong, isn’t the worst thing, but it’s also a bit ironic. The adults in the book I found particularly flat, which while it worked for a book where the teens and their relationships was the whole point, I was left wanting more.
All in all, I found this book to be pretty ok. I fully admit I was not looking forward to reading this book. I read it for work, and it is definitely not something I’d gravitate towards on my own. The writing was really where this book fell flat for me. When I was taking my halfway point notes to compose my review, I couldn’t even remember Harriet’s name. I also had trouble tracking which character’s perspective I was reading, as their voices sounded fairly similar, just with different levels of sass. There is also quite a few pop culture references that won't age particularly well. That criticism aside, Pretty in Pink is one of my favorite movies of all time and it was very intriguing to me to see that basic plot taken and applied to an Australian private school once I got into it and realized what the book was truly about. How Amelia Westlake spiraled into something beyond what either girl could have ever imagined when they teamed up on a (hard to believe) whim was one of my favorite parts of the book. The scene in the auditorium at the end brought joy to my heart. This wasn’t a “must finish in one sitting” book for me, but it was one that I could happily sit and just read, and wasn’t dreading picking back up when I set it down.
Amelia Westlake is a lesbian Pretty in Pink. The book is marketed as two girls who were the most unlikely duo fighting the sexual harassment by a school coach and other injustices done by their school’s teachers and administrators. What this book really is though is two girls learning that the people and institutions around them are more than the stereotypes and the preconceived notions the girls have. Truly a Pretty in Pink story, prom included.
That being said I found the characters in this book to be very flat. Harriet was the preppy good-two-shoes, EXCEPT… Will was the artistic, politically in the know, rebel, EXCEPT… Neither of the characters really got any backstory for WHY they were the way they were, other than Harriet being from a rich family and Will being from the “wrong side of the tracks”. It made it seem like they were less characters and more pawn in the author’s intent to show that a person is more than the stereotype seen at first glance by starting as a stereotype and then the author adding in bits to make them more into characters. Which is suppose in a book all about proving stereotyping wrong, isn’t the worst thing, but it’s also a bit ironic. The adults in the book I found particularly flat, which while it worked for a book where the teens and their relationships was the whole point, I was left wanting more.
All in all, I found this book to be pretty ok. I fully admit I was not looking forward to reading this book. I read it for work, and it is definitely not something I’d gravitate towards on my own. The writing was really where this book fell flat for me. When I was taking my halfway point notes to compose my review, I couldn’t even remember Harriet’s name. I also had trouble tracking which character’s perspective I was reading, as their voices sounded fairly similar, just with different levels of sass. There is also quite a few pop culture references that won't age particularly well. That criticism aside, Pretty in Pink is one of my favorite movies of all time and it was very intriguing to me to see that basic plot taken and applied to an Australian private school once I got into it and realized what the book was truly about. How Amelia Westlake spiraled into something beyond what either girl could have ever imagined when they teamed up on a (hard to believe) whim was one of my favorite parts of the book. The scene in the auditorium at the end brought joy to my heart. This wasn’t a “must finish in one sitting” book for me, but it was one that I could happily sit and just read, and wasn’t dreading picking back up when I set it down.