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Revenge of the Girl With the Great Personality

von Elizabeth Eulberg

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18416146,867 (3.52)4
Sick of living in the shadow of her seven-year-old pageant queen sister who is praised for her looks, Lexi resolves to get a makeover when she determines her personality just isn't enough to garner the attentions of boys.
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Lexi is liked at her high school, but she's never been one of those girls, the pretty ones who get all the dates with the guys. In fact, to her private chagrin, she's never been on a date, never been kissed. But she was described by one boy to another as a girl "with a great personality"- confirmation that she'll never be seen as girlfriend material. While her good friend Cam reminds her that she is so much more than her looks, and her looks are FINE, she's constantly reminded of beauty/looking good because of her little sister Mackenzie, a 7 yr old beauty pageant participant. Mom and dad divorced, and mom began a steep decline into obesity, while throwing all her free time and too many of the family's resources into helping Mackenzie compete in pageant after pageant. Lexi dreams of graduating and moving to New York to pursue a fashion design career, so her weekend mall job provides some savings and any money she actually can call her own for food, clothes, etc. When her other good friend Benny challenges her to come to school with some make up and dressed up, & she challenges him to converse with his secret crush, Chris, things begin to change at school & her social life expands. Will Logan, her secret crush, ever break up with Alyssa (another beauty pageant queen)? Will he ever see her as more than a "friend" ? While written in a breezy, light hearted tone, with just enough teen sarcasm from Lexi to provide some chuckles, this book deals with issues dear to teen girls' hearts: what does it mean to be liked for yourself, not your looks? is it important to be a part of the "Popular Posse"? why beauty pageants? how to deal with a mom obsessed with her little sister's "beauty" career & taking them down to financial ruin? how to try to get dad to help when he's found a new girlfriend and has no intention of moving back to their town? Fun read and upbeat ending. ( )
  BDartnall | Oct 30, 2017 |
Great book about siblings and accepting ourselves for ourselves. ( )
  Amanda16948 | Dec 18, 2013 |
This is my first book from Elizabeth Eulberg, and I was pleasantly surprised how well the subject of beauty pageants were handled. I don’t watch them on T.V. but have seen the commercials for them, and boy they sure look they are drama filled. The synopsis peeked my interest to see just what the beauty pageant world might be like.

We meet our main character Lexi not too long after her parents have divorced, and she lives with her Mother and sister. Lexi has lived in the shadow of her younger, diva sister. I really wanted to root for Lexi, she works to help her mother and sister, she has good friends that care about her and she seems to be a pretty good kid all the way around. Her Mother on the other is a whole other story. I just wanted to reach in and smack her a few times. Actually a lot of the times, She is infuriating to say the least. Mac is Lexi’s little sister. At first she came across as a snotty little girl, but as the story went on I was happy to see there was more to her than just the beauty pageants. There are few friends that were great. Benny is on her best friends and he hasn’t “come out yet”, and god I adored him, and he is what best friends should be.

The world building was great and moved at a good pace. There were lots of drama, like in all high schools. Whose pretty, popular, and of course boys. How could we not have those? Lexi’s choices were not always spot on, but those a typical teenage girl who had been labeled the “girl with the great personality” not the girl the boys want to date. Lexi changes her appearance and the way she acts to gain more attention. And boy did she get it. Following her through out the journey to find out what was really important was enjoyable and I was pleased with the ending and how things turned out.

Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality touches on a few different subjects, and I thought they were done very well. You’ll feel many different emotions, and just want to root for Lexi and her best friends. This is a wonderful story of self discovery and I would definitely say pick this one up. And I will be finding more from Eulberg too. ( )
  jeneaw | Sep 30, 2013 |

This and other reviews can be found on Reading Between Classes

Cover Impressions: The cover is cute, though a bit simplistic for my taste. I might prefer if it had something in the background, like a mirror that the lipstick was scrawled on...

The Gist: Lexi has spent years catering to her 7 year old sister turned pageant princess. She sews, she primps, she meets the ever-increasing demands of her overbearing mother. She is known as the girl with the "great personality" and she is ready for a change. When her best friend challenges her to put some serious effort into her personality, she reluctantly relents, if only to prove that she is a hopeless case. Armed with perfectly coifed hair and fabulously fake lashes, she receives more attention than she ever dreamed, including one very cute guy - even if it isn't really the guy she wanted. As her world changes, she begins to doubt which Lexi is the real one: the beautiful girl, or the one with the great personality?

Review: Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality was a fun read with a few flaws. I loved the premise and the glimpse into the world of the sister of a pageant princess. Lexi had an interesting voice and I loved that she didn't buy into the whole pageant world. She was a but too whiney for my taste and she constantly lamented her lack of beauty (which was easily solved by a modicum of makeup - really, you're hideous and a touch of concealer fixes everything? I don't think so.) I thought the sometimes rocky but always backed by love, relationship between the sisters was pretty realistic. Even though it was sometimes painful to read about, so was the relationship between the divorced mother and her daughters. The mother was truly damaged and looking for validation in all the wrong places. At one point, she made a move so heinous that I was left feeling shocked and betrayed along with Lexi and it amped up my feelings of disgust and re-engaged me with the plot of the novel. Unlike the familial relationships, I didn't feel any real connection with either of the love interests but, to be fair, I don't think Lexi really did either. They mostly served as a backdrop against which she could make new discoveries about herself. Her friends, however, had a lot of unrealized potential. They were interesting, but fell flat and undeveloped while we followed Lexi through the "popular" world.

The thing that irked me about this novel was the way in which Lexi preached to pageant parents at the end. Being in a profession where I, occasionally, come across entitled, know-it-all children, I found her lecturing to be very off-putting. Her experiences with her sister and mother give her an insight into the beauty and ugliness of the pageant world, but they do not make her an expert on each family's situation not do they give her the right to judge parents who have twice (or more) her life experience.

Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality is, ultimately, a cute novel with a good message about self-love that would be enjoyed by most teenage girls.

Teaching/Parental Notes:

Age: 12 and up
Gender: Female
Sex: Kissing
Violence: Teen gets slapped by parent
Inappropriate Language: None
Substance Use/Abuse: Underage Drinking ( )
  ZabetReading | Sep 21, 2013 |
This review will probably be longer than the short book itself, but unfortunately the author has inspired me to go off on a diatribe.

Eulberg tries to incorporate some good messages into this novel but I’m not sure she doesn’t undermine herself at most turns. Her biggest messages seem to be:

(1) There is nothing “wrong” with being gay; in fact, there is no reason for gay kids and their romances and romance angstiness to be treated any differently than hetero romance and angst. The author does a great job on this score.

(2) Preoccupation with looks is absurd and does not indicate true worth. Here, I think Eulberg submarines her own case. In the story, Lexi Anderson, 16, has a seven-year-old sister, Mackenzie (“Mac”) who is pretty much a fictional incarnation of Honey Boo Boo (the nickname of seven-year-old child beauty pageant participant Alana Thompson, who appears in a reality tv show along with her family.) Lexi is considered the one with “the great personality” while Mac is “the beauty.” (Lexi explains that “When a guy uses great personality to describe a girl, it’s the polite way of saying fat and ugly.”) Presumably, the author (via Lexi) aims to show us this is not the case. But the way she goes about it actually vitiates her point.

First of all, notice how fat is paired with ugly. Fat is also paired with unpleasantness in general: the mother is not only a horrid, screeching caricature of pageant moms, but is overweight to boot. The obesity helps contribute to her image of being repulsive. Moreover, Lexi frequently makes observations like this one:

"One of the benefits of having a morbidly obese mother is that it has made me overly paranoid about my weight. I stick to mostly non-processed foods, which is basically the opposite of what Mom eats. So I’m not fat and I’m not the most disgusting girl in my class, but I’m nowhere near the prettiest.”

Message: fat equals disgusting.

I’d love to be able to report that Lexi goes on to develop some understanding for her mother, who is divorced, emotionally devastated, financially strapped, and afraid for her future. So okay, she might use food as a way to relax and/or as an antidepressant. How many of us are free enough of those tendencies to throw stones and not exhibit a little compassion? But Lexi’s only epiphany is that you don’t need to look like a full-blown beauty pageant contestant (i.e., tons of hairspray, makeup, provocative clothing, and an anorexic frame) in order to thrive and be happy. But a little bit certainly helps, to Lexi’s mind.

In fact, one of the worst things about the book, to me, is that Lexi turns out, when primped up with makeup and short skirts and tight tees, to be “a hottie” afterall. Thus, she really is a babe, destroying the whole argument that one can simply be a great girl with a great personality and still get the guy or be valuable or whatever other positive message the author would like to convey. What if she weren’t actually a “hottie” in disguise?

This is such a common meme it is almost unrecognizable on a conscious level. But think about The Ugly Duckling. Sure, the duckling got its “revenge” against the bullies when it turned into a beautiful swan, but what about if it just grew up to be an older ugly duck?

And then there’s this most awful bit: When Lexi finally starts dressing for school like a sex kitten, her best friend Cam reports that boys are talking about her:

"Cam sighs. ‘They’re all like…’ Cam makes her voice low, ‘Dude, have you seen Lexi, she’s looking hot, wouldn’t mind getting me a piece of that.’ You know, stupid guy stuff.”

Wait for it:

Lexi:

"‘Really?’ I try to not make it known how happy this makes me.”

Gaaaah! The author never takes this issue on at all (except obliquely in reference to the pageants), i.e., the perception of girls as sex objects and worse yet, girls being HAPPY to be thought of in that way. GAAAAH! How bad is the societal addiction of women to look attractive to men that “finally” being totally objectified makes girls HAPPY? Gaaaaah!

Lexi does manage to have some good insights in spite of these plot elements that negate them. For instance, she comes to understand that:

"...high school is exactly like a beauty pageant. … Instead of a tiara,” she observes, “you’re anointed worthy of a spot at the Beautiful People table [in the cafeteria].”

She also has lots to say about the vileness of pimping little girls in the beauty pageants, although disappointingly, no sophisticated insights on gender, sexuality, power relationships, or even sexual trafficking, which could have been appropriate under the circumstances. And finally, both she and her little sister Mac occasionally sound much more sophisticated than their years, although its possible that living on the pageant circuit can do that to you.

So let’s move on to the good things:

1. The book is fast paced, and keeps your interest.
2. The chapter titles are very clever, reminiscent of the style used in Hold Me Closer, Necromancer.
3. I like Lexi’s constant impulse to interrogate her own behavior and motivations, and to try to be a good person, or at least recognize when she is not.
4. As mentioned above, I love the way the author developed the story with Lexi’s BGayFF Benny. It’s done well enough that I [almost] can forgive the tired trope of Lead Girl’s Best Friend Who Is A Gay Guy.
5. There is a lot of humor, and a spot-on description of the concerns a teenage girl would have on her first date.
6. The story has not one but TWO “hair tuck” quotes for my hair tuck database (and once again a cute guy with a “crooked smile.” Why oh why didn’t a start a database for THOSE passages too?)

Evaluation: I was made very uncomfortable by the handling of both weight and beauty issues in this book. While it seemed as if the author had good intentions, I think maybe she couldn’t quite escape her own socialization. To me, the story didn't seem as “empowering” as I think she intended it. ( )
  nbmars | May 23, 2013 |
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Sick of living in the shadow of her seven-year-old pageant queen sister who is praised for her looks, Lexi resolves to get a makeover when she determines her personality just isn't enough to garner the attentions of boys.

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