Welcome to Manderley Academy I hadn't wanted to go, but my parents were so excited... So here I am, the new girl at Manderley, a true fish out of water. But mine's not the name on everyone's lips. Oh, no. It's Becca Normandy they can't stop talking about. Perfect, beautiful Becca. She went missing at the end of last year, leaving a spot open at Manderley— the spot that I got. And everyone acts like it's my fault that infallible, beloved Becca is gone and has been replaced by not perfect, completely fallible, unknown Me. Then, there's the name on my lips— Max Holloway. Becca's ex. The one boy I should avoid, but can't. Thing is, it seems like he wants me, too. But the memory of Becca is always between us. And as much as I'm starting to like it at Manderley, I can't help but think she's out there, somewhere, watching me take her place. Waiting to take it back.
Publication Year: 2012
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0Review also posted at The Wandering Fangirl.
New Girl is...interesting. I found it hard to put my thoughts together once I was through because there were different layers to it, half of which I loved, half of which drove me nuts.
We have two narrators; New Girl, who is a Floridian sent to a Northeastern boarding school in her senior year, and Becca Normandy, the giant shoes she has to fill, no matter how much she doesn't want to. New Girl's chapters are a practice in confusion and loneliness - the kids at school aren't particularly nasty to her at all, they just really loved Becca, who has gone missing. Becca's chapters are the typical spoiled brat determined to be popular trope, but as we move along we realize she's a girl with so much doubt and no idea what she wants, which anyone can relate to.
Weighing these characters against each other, it's easy to root for New Girl and hate Becca simply for the legacy New Girl has to live up to, but the book isn't that simple. Becca is a trainwreck of a girl, and though the simplistic bent of her narrative bugged me at first, it's hard not to sympathize with her. I might not have loved her at the end, but I knew who Becca was and why she was.
The romance here is actually pretty damned good. It's not your straight up boy meets girl, crushes ensue, everyone ends up happily ever after type of story. It's much more complex and messed up at times, which is easy to say of the entire book.
New Girl is a pretty good read at the end of it all, a complex, interesting novel highlighting two very different girls and who they are and choose to be.
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