Kind of a Big Deal
By Shannon Hale
Teen Fiction
Kind of a Big Deal follows the falling stardom journey of high school dropout Josie Pie, who suddenly finds herself being sucked into the books she reads. She becomes the lead of romance novels, a superhero, and a heroine in a post-apocalyptic story. She begins to live for these forays into make-believe worlds, but she eventually finds that these fantasy worlds aren’t as wonderful as they seem.
I was first interested in this book because I’ve loved some of Shannon Hale’s previous books, but also because it sounded like a fun, magical realism escapism story. What reader hasn’t imagined living in the book they’re reading? And I really enjoyed reading this book! It was fun and punny and full of clichés! And then it made fun of those clichés in a meta fashion, which was brilliant. It was a pretty well-rounded novel with realism, magic, LGTBQ+ rep, and a flawed MC who discovered what she truly wanted through a fantastical journey of self-reflection.
If you love books about books, especially plots where characters go inside books, and if you like movies like “Isn’t it Romantic,” you would probably enjoy this book!
Reviewed by Erica Myers, Circulation
