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A review by jessicaredmond8
The New Girl by Jesse Q. Sutanto
3.0
This is just a big eh unfortunately. I know these are teenagers so their actions don’t always make sense to me as an adult but the actions of our main character really, truly did not make sense. To the point where one of the main plot points was frustrating because you know the whole thing was over the top and unnecessary.
The pacing was super off in this book too. Starts off great, interesting narrator, meeting other characters. Then a big plot point will take place, lots of suspense and you think, ok things are really going to take off now. But it doesn’t and we’re just reading about her school days for a bit again. Then the pattern repeats like that a few times. You just get a bit of whiplash from that. And the ending was so rushed and felt wholly disconnected from the rest of the book and the plot that had been building.
One thing I did really love and enjoy in this book was the discussions about Indonesian culture and some of the issues of racism our narrator faced because she was native Indo and how she was treated by Chinese-Indo people. It opened by eyes to a new culture I knew nothing about and also taught me a bit about issues they face within that culture. Just a really great addition to the story and the main thing I liked about the book.
The pacing was super off in this book too. Starts off great, interesting narrator, meeting other characters. Then a big plot point will take place, lots of suspense and you think, ok things are really going to take off now. But it doesn’t and we’re just reading about her school days for a bit again. Then the pattern repeats like that a few times. You just get a bit of whiplash from that. And the ending was so rushed and felt wholly disconnected from the rest of the book and the plot that had been building.
One thing I did really love and enjoy in this book was the discussions about Indonesian culture and some of the issues of racism our narrator faced because she was native Indo and how she was treated by Chinese-Indo people. It opened by eyes to a new culture I knew nothing about and also taught me a bit about issues they face within that culture. Just a really great addition to the story and the main thing I liked about the book.