A review by blogginboutbooks
The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls by Julie Schumacher

3.0

I picked up THE UNBEARABLE BOOK CLUB FOR UNSINKABLE GIRLS for a few reasons: the premise sounded appealing; the summery cover made it look like a light, fun read; and I needed a book set in Delaware (of which there aren't many) for a reading challenge. The beginning of the novel is promising as the four very different girls reluctantly come together to begin their book project, but it doesn't take long for the story to just kind of...fizzle. A character-driven novel needs an interesting cast and none of the girls at the center of the tale are all that intriguing. Adrienne worries that she's boring for good reason; she is. CeeCee's more colorful, but her character is still a very rich-girl-with-absent-parents-acting-out-to-get-their-attention cliché and Jill is quirky but hardly developed at all. CeeCee is a spoiled, self-centered brat. Adrienne isn't as bad, but she's not very likable either. Sad, mysterious Wallis is the only one I really cared about. To make matters worse, there's not a lot of plot to the book and what is there is rather here, there, and everywhere. Several story threads never really get resolved, which is irritating. Also, this book feels more middle grade than YA; like Adrienne, it seems confused about what it's supposed to be. It's depressing to boot. Oh, and that easy, breezy cover? Yeah, it doesn't really match what's inside.

On the plus side, I always like books about books. The literary references in this novel are fun and there are some insightful thoughts in it about books and reading. Also, it's a quick read, so even if its execution isn't as good as I wanted it to be, it didn't take me long to finish this one. The fact that I completed THE UNBEARABLE BOOK CLUB FOR UNSINKABLE GIRLS means it engaged me enough that I didn't DNF it. Still, I didn't love it and, in fact, found it rather meh. I definitely wanted more from it.