Things You Either Hate or Love (review)

Fifteen-year-old Georgia Reeves has a problem (besides the size of her butt)—it's an upcoming Natural Affinity concert, starring melancholy poet and lead singer Jakob, to whom Georgia has erected a shrine in her bedroom and whose concert she won't be able to attend without cash. After a few disastrous attempts at money-making, including a babysitting gig that ends in mayhem and a job in a bakery where an obnoxious co-worker drives Georgia to finally crack and assault him with a baguette, Georgia finally lands a job at New World supermarket. She soon develops a crush on sensitive, golden-curled co-worker Hunter but can't be sure whether Hunter likes her romantically or whether he's interested in the more popular Eva. Georgia's feisty sense of humor, sometimes expressed in quirky lists ("Silly Things I Would Do Without," "Especially Good Words") entered into her journal, provides the main appeal of what is otherwise standard (and, at times, confusingly plotted) chick-lit fare. Though some readers will appreciate the frothy angst of Georgia's narration, pacing and plot take a back seat to voice, resulting in the glossing over of important events (such as a hold-up at the supermarket), which, because they are rendered in the same breathless prose as everything else, threaten to pass the reader by. Though this could be a mild diversion with an Australian accent for fans of chick lit, there's not much to draw in the otherwise committed; for good or ill, this novel could easily appear (along with anchovies, the Olsen twins, and rainy days) on its own titular list.