The summary is what initially drew me to the book...a post-grad teen girl finds love, herself, and friends at a '91 mall. Being a child of the 90s, I decided I wanted to read about teens of the era.

Right off the back, it shows you that the main character, recovering from Mono Cassie, is not going to find love with her boyfriend, Troy (won't say why). And just like the plot says, she does find herself, love, and friends in unexpected places after she has to quit her job where she was paired up with her now ex-boyfriend and finds a job at a risque clothing shop run by her childhood best friend's mom, at Bellarosa.

Though a lot of the book had parts I didn't expect from a 90s mall book (though, honestly, the only shops I spent most of my time in during the summer of 1991 was toy stores). But I still found the book an enjoyable read. It has more discovering yourself of the three prior mentions than anything else. And it isn't rushed through or forced, but has a nice, natural flow to it.

It isn't a light or for younger teens (more older teens), but still it's a good read to add to your reading list.

I enjoyed this book, but yet thought the girls were spoiled brats. They came off as very entitled and as if they are better than everyone.

Okay so technically I was in college in the 90s, not high school, but I still did spend time in malls and was looking forward to a fun bit of Pop Culture nostalgia, particularly in these weirdly uncertain and stressful times. I didn't find it LOL. I think I'm just too old for this book - I enjoyed the references and the inside jokes, but there really wasn't much story beyond them. The characters felt immature and irritating and oddly flat, like cardboard cutouts of people being put through the motions of what high school is supposed to be. I'm not sure if this is a fault of the book, or of me looking at it through my 40-something lenses though, but either way this one was not for me...

The Mall by Megan McCafferty is so 90s it hurts. I like to think of myself as a 90s kid, but the truth is I grew up in the early 2000s because I was born in the 90s. This book is a perfect time capsule to see what it was like, or to fuel your nostalgia. Despite the disparity in my age, I definitely hung out at a mall a lot and this book definitely reminded me of those days.

It’s a challenge to do a book with only one setting, but McCafferty handles that well. The mall is alive with different shops, characters and a perfect place for all of Cassie’s story to unfold. I loved seeing all the cute specialty shops and it pains me that most malls today are so bland in comparison. The characters themselves seemed to be creations of the shops they worked at, fitting the aesthetics perfectly.

I enjoyed the book, but there was A LOT going on. So many plot threads that most of them don’t really go that far. The book takes place in entirely one setting over about six weeks but there’s so much going on in that six weeks it’s a mess. I really adored the Cabbage Patch kid treasure hunt plot and the Troy subplot, but I felt like a few of the others could have been dropped.

I think Cassie was a good, flawed protagonist, but I wish she would have gotten a little more punishment at the end. She’s really mean, particularly to other girls and her parents, and there’s just a quick montage at the end where everything is fixed perfectly happily ever after. It’s common to complain books are rushed at the ending but I really think this one was. One chapter Cassie’s life is totally wrecked, the next day she goes and says some apologies and everything is fine.

I really liked the love interest in this book, but the plot for him was fairly shallow. I will forgive this based on the way they end it with the characters but I wish we could have seen more of him instead of some of the less interesting scenes and characters.

The Mall is a nostalgic 90s time capsule set in a place where plenty of teenagers spend most of their free time (or at least did, am I old?). It’s ultimately a fun, if messy read, and hits some really fantastic beats. Also there’s a treasure hunt featuring Cabbage Patch Kids, so what more could you ask for really?

While I appreciated (actually LOVED) all the references to the town I grew up in, and likely the mall that I shopped/worked in, the lack of character development really ruined this book for me. At the start, I feel like you were just dropped into the story, here's Cassie, five cents worth of back story, and... go! I didn't feel anything for her until the last handful of pages. All the other mall characters were interesting, but still, very flat. The plot was interesting enough, but the entire story was too on the surface. Also, who would choose B. Dalton instead of Waldenbooks??? Come on!!

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<p>Every now and then, I wonder if I'm getting too old for YA fiction. Sure, there are some incredible books in the genre that stand the test of time, but the genre is evidently meant for a younger audience than my current age bracket, and some of the tropes that would've been swoon-worthy even a year ago now seem dated and stale. Maybe it's that I'm at a different stage of my life than the majority of teen protagonists; maybe it's that finding good YA is difficult at the current moment for whatever reason; I don't know. What I do know, however, is that for as charming and sweet as this book was, it very clearly wasn't meant for me.</p>
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<p>Our main heroine, Cassie, starts off the book as an unlikeable type-A know-it-all. Along with her boyfriend Troy, she plans to move to New York and start a new life in an exclusive New York City university. I saw quite a bit of myself in Cassie - down to the fact that she and I attend the same college, and both of us harbored the dream to escape a boring suburbia for the excitement of a city. I also found Cassie's journey compelling, and the strength she drew from herself and her friendships believable. The treasure hunt around the mall was a cute subplot, and even the "maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way" angle wasn't as trite as it would've been in a lesser book due to the skill of the writing and the pre-established role of friendship in the larger plot.</p>
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<p>There were some... regrettable elements of this book, however. While nothing stood out to me as inherently "problematic," Drea and her mother felt incredibly cartoonish, as did the earlier scenes of Cassie's ex-boyfriend and his new fling. Similarly, some of the humor felt like it was a relic of a "random is funny" time, and I wasn't impressed. As fun as this book is, I definitely felt my age with this one - odd considering it's set in a time before I was born.</p>
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It's summertime in the early 90s, and Cassie has just lost her boyfriend and her job. When she gets a job at a upscale-ish clothing boutique with her former bestie, her summer and her outlook on life will change forever. There is also a treasure hunt.

Most of this book is like a less-fun version of that Stranger Things Season 3 mall montage with Max and Eleven. To be fair, this is not necessarily my thing to begin with, but I picked it up because I loved the author's Jessica Darling series - she brought the swoon and the substance. This was cute but surface-level. Like a mall montage. Moreover, the main character is a massive brat for basically the entire book, which I know was kind of the point (character development!), but her small, not sure that it even happened realization was too-little-too-late for me. She had maxed out my goodwill ages ago. The treasure hunt subplot was fun, and it hinges on cabbage patch kids which was a huge point of nostalgia for this reader. And that's kind of what this book is going for - 90s nostalgia. But it's aimed at an audience that didn't live through the 90s. I can see teens liking it as a beach read, but otherwise, I'm not really sure who it's for.

TLDR: This is the third of three books that I've compared to 90s movies in as many months, and unfortunately, it's the worst of the three. It's basically a mall shenanigans montage in book form. If that's your thing, go for it. It's a cute, light summer read. Otherwise, re-watch Stranger Things Season 3 instead. 2 stars - For me, it was just ok.

Thanks to Wednesday Books and Netgalley for the eARC, which I received in exchange for an unbiased review. The Mall will be released on 28 July.

This book was fun, but felt a little lackluster unfortunately. I wanted more of the relationship and more of the treasure hunt.

This book was cute, but not as good as her Sloppy Firsts series. I enjoyed the "historical fiction in the 80's" setting and it was a fast, fun read. I will plan to purchase it for my classroom library to recommend especially for students looking for something not too heavy and enjoyable.

Arc provided by Netgalley. Review to come.

I loved the Jessica Darling series. Like, LOVED it. I was so excited to see that this new novel was coming out and even more excited to read it early. What a dang treat.

This was fun. It was silly. It was a bit over the top but in a good way. <spoiler>(The fashion show blow out? Ouch) </spoiler)

I loved the friendships that were formed and the nicknames for love interests. I feel like at a mall working environment, that seemed pretty realistic to me. It made me long for the malls of yore... (lol what kind of sentence is that? I hope you know what I mean. Like, I feel like malls these days just aren't the same.) I quite liked this.

I did find that Cassie's voice sometimes sounds like Jessica Darling's voice (dubious honor is a phrase that they both have thrown around) but the casual reader of this book would never even know that.

Not a perfect book but I had a good time reading it. I do question some YA books set in this time period sometimes. I never know if current YA readers enjoy reading this early 90's time period. It's a little too young for people who would have been teens when this was set who would read this for nostalgic purposes? I don't know. I can't wait to see what others think of it.

Made me sad, but I DNF.

It had such potential: the nostalgia, the quips, the store names! But it fell flat for me. I made it 20% in and still could not connect with the main character or the plot. Maybe it picks up later in the book, but I was...bored. Nothing happens during that time other than the main character having a breakup and finding a new job. It seemed to be only narration of her obsessing over telling her parents about the breakup and/or finding a new route through the mall to avoid her ex.

My main point being; I couldn't tell what the plot was, and at 20% in, the reader should know what the protagonist is facing and the road ahead for them to overcome it.

Maybe someday I'll give it another try and make it further!

As a long time fan of Megan McCafferty I was so excited get an advanced copy of her newest book The Mall. I thought the story had great character development and the mystery definitely kept me turning pages. I could totally picture the book in my mind and found myself wishing I could go to The Mall in real life. I enjoyed the fact that there were a few references to her previous Jessica Darling series thrown in as well. Overall I give the book 4 stars because of the ending. It was well written, but not how I was hoping it’d end. I do look forward to reading her next book and hope there will be future references to this book so we can get a better idea of where the characters end up.

This was a fun light read! It's a good one to get you out of a reading slump, and is a fun take on that last summer job before you go away for college! I highly recommend this for someone looking for an enjoyable, character-driven story about teenagers having fun and going on realistic(-adjacent) adventures. This book was refreshing and enjoyable, and well worth the read!

The fact that this was set in the 90s was probably one of the great things about it! Not only is that great for young adult readers to read about, but I think it also brings a lot of nostalgia for older YA readers as well.

This book was fun. It targeted all the fun stuff and terrible thing about being a teenage girl, but it also tackled some tough stuff. I've read McCafferty's work before, and this book was just as excellent as her others.

She brought the 90s mall back to life!

Great read, and I'm excited for young adults to enjoy as much as I did.

Cassandra Worthy knows she's worthy of having a good summer. She missed her prom and graduation due to mono, but she's recovered and ready to start her summer job at the mall with her long-term boyfriend. This was part of their plan, and they always stick to the plan. So, when everything starts to fall apart, Cassie isn't sure what she'll do. Set in the 1990s, this YA novel takes the reader on a journey back to the time, the music, and the fashion, while Cassie figures out her life.

“It’s recently come to my attention that I’m a selfish asshole.”

This was a three-star read for me. It was told with wit from the view point of a girl who has got some growing up to do, a girl who has a propensity toward childish violence (chucking staplers or whatever is in her hand at the person annoying her) which was unbelievable and seemed to almost be mocking Jersey girls. Cassie was obnoxious almost the entire novel, but, as the quote shows, she was written to be that way. Unfortunately, it made it hard for me to want to pick up the book and keep reading. What I did love were the 90s references! What fun to go through a mall with all of the stores that were the backdrop to my own childhood (B. Dalton ♥️). Overall, a decent YA read about the trials of tribulations of growing up.

Did anyone else have Let's Go to the Mall by Robin Sparkles (from How I Met Your Mother) in their head for part of this? Just me, well I'm okay with that.

It's the summer of 1991 and Cassie is hoping to make money before she heads off to college. Cassie is a planner and the perfect plan in place of working at the American Cookie Company with her perfect boyfriend, Troy. Alas, when Cassie returns to work after recovering from mono, she sees her perfect plans ripped to shred. Her perfect boyfriend Troy has cheated on her and with their break-up comes the loss of her job. Without a plan, and income, in sight, Cassie tries to find another job at the mall. When all seems lost, she finds herself at the Bellarosa boutique, which is the uncoolest place to be according to Cassie, and owned by the mom of her former best friend. Cassie finds that even an uncool shop can still provide a paycheck so she takes a job as their temporary summer accountant. Cassie ends up getting more than she bargained in for in a coming-of-age story chalk full of nostalgia amongst a treasure hunt in the mall.

The Mall is a cute little YA book that's perfect for summer bingeing. Although I'm more of a mid-90s kid since I was born in the mid-1980s, it still had a lot of nostalgia for me. It is predictable but a fun story that makes you remember growing up, finding yourself, finding/losing love and the friendships that endure.

I'm *just* too young to fully appreciate mall culture. (I also grew up in a rural area where the closest mall was an hour away, so mall culture wasn't really a thing for us anyway.)

That said, I feel like this book is meant to serve a nostalgic curiosity. If you go into this book expecting it to be part of our current 90s fascination, then you'll get what you came for. If you're going into this book expecting a story that is going to change your life, make you think deeply, or make you weep, you're reading the wrong book.

This is a quick, easy read to pass the time before you move onto that big series you're wanting to tackle.

Really enjoyed! It was a nice change of pace from the usual books I've been reading in the past. I liked the voice and the style of the book. Something easy to read without being too crazy in the middle of the pandemic!

This feels like the novelization of all of my favorite coming-of-age chick flicks! This book takes place during one of my favorite time periods = the 90s - while I was only a child during this time, I still vividly remember the look of the malls and how much time my family spent at one. I adored that Cassie is smart and isn't looked down on for being so, but also loved she get the makeover scene that every girl deserves. Hidden in this story is an even more epic treasure hunt! This book has everything you love and need from a chick flick in it!

I have never previously read a book by Megan McCafferty but her method of storytelling is just what I needed.

This book brought me way back to the 90’s of my childhood. Even though I wasn’t a teen at the time, it brought back so many memories and I recognized many of the stores from the mall. The story was also really good about finding oneself and growing. I liked how Cassie changed and became a better person, taking the high way instead of being crushed by her ex-boyfriend. My favorite part was finding friendship in the unlikeliest of places. It’s a really fun, throwback book that I enjoyed very much.