The Ninja Reviews... Geek Charming by Robin Palmer

Dylan

I didn’t realize when I finally scored my first Serge Sanchez bag how much my life was about to change.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t even thinking past which outfit would look best with my super HOT new purchase.  And when that self-same bag went flying into the dancing fountain at the mall (which had absolutely NOTHING to do with my drama queen antics, thank you very much), I didn’t really think about the deal I was making when I convinced James…Joe…maybe it was John…to fish it out for me. 

Who knew he’d be so demanding…or so determined to make me keep my end of the bargain?  I certainly didn’t expect him to schmooze up to my dad!  But he did…and it worked.  Now I’m stuck helping him with this stupid documentary!  And he may not realize it, but I’m totally on to his plan – he just wants to make all of us popular kids look like stuck-up snobs, which we’re totally not.  He’ll see - I’ll show him what life is really like on my side of the cafeteria!

Josh

The first time Dylan spoke more than three words to me was while screaming her head off in the middle of the mall on a weekday afternoon.  The last thing I wanted to do was get involved with the princess of Castle Heights High…but I’ve never been very good at saying no, and well, someone had to shut her up, right?  So, I plunged into the fountain and rescued her bobbing handbag, but not before making a deal.  It was the perfect plan, my help in exchange for the opportunity to film Dylan (and the rest of the popular clique.)

This would be the chance of a lifetime and hopefully (seeing as how my grades weren’t going to get me there) my ticket into USC’s prestigious film school!  Not once did it cross my mind that she’d try to renege on our bargain…or how difficult she’d make my life once I unintentionally got her dad on my side.  I’ve definitely got my work cut out for me - but hey, all great directors have had setbacks in their careers – I’m sure Quentin and Martin and Steven (that’s Tarantino, Scorsese, and Spielberg, by the way) have all had difficult actors they had to deal with at some point or another.  I can totally handle this…   …then again, maybe not!  Has anyone seen my inhaler?!

While not my usual cup of tea, I found Geek Charming to be a fun and uplifting tale of unlikely friendship.  While it was hard to relate to Dylan at first (who really does start out as a self-centered brat), Josh was right up my alley with all of his amusingly inane movie and medical trivia.  Granted, not all of the minor characters were as fleshed out as I would have preferred, but this book was still an interesting, thoughtful look into what it’s like on “both sides of the high school cafeteria” and how none of us are really as different as we’d like to pretend.

This book is on YALSA's top 10 nominee 2009 books for teens. You can see the list of nominees here.