The Manifesto On How To Be Interesting by Holly Bourne

Book of the Week: 19 June 2016

The conversational and confiding style, rather like the intriguing title, draw you in to the story straightaway. Bree is from a wealthy background but is lonely and unpopular at school. Her only friend in Year 12 is Holdo, who has named himself after Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye. Holdo considers Bree to be girlfriend material but the feeling doesn’t seem to be mutual. Together they drink red wine, watch cult movies and complain about  popular people at school as well as Bree’s lack of success in being a published author. A passing comment by Mr Fellows, Bree’s English teacher, drives her to ‘become more interesting’ by changing her appearance, abandoning Holdo and joining the ‘cool crowd’ at school. For a while, the story is reminiscent of the movie Mean Girls but becomes much darker when her crush on Mr Fellows turns into something serious.

This is a book about friendships, bullying and what sacrifices you might have to make to be popular. Unusually in Young Adult literature, it also deals with the difficult and sensitive topic of inappropriate teacher-student relationships. This, along with frank language, self-harm and sexual references make it more suitable for older readers. Bree isn’t always a likeable character, and some aspects of the plot can seem a bit too neatly resolved, but it is an engaging read as well as a thought-provoking one.

If you enjoyed Silence is Goldfish by Annabel Pitcher, or the adult novel Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller, then you will find similarities in The Manifesto On How To Be Interesting.