What I Like About Me by Jenna Guillaume, 304 pages. LGBTQIA+
Peachtree Publishing, 2020. $18.
Language: R (106 swears, 16 “f”); Mature Content: PG13; Violence: PG
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
Discovery: Maisie, age 16, is not thrilled about this vacation. Evidence: Ms. Singh assigned homework over the break in the form of a daily discovery journal -- a journal that Maisie’s mother is going to check on every day. Also, Maisie’s dad didn’t come on their annual Christmas trip, which Maisie is pretty sure is a sign of impending divorce. Meanwhile, Maisie’s best friend Anna did come on the trip, which should be a good thing, but Anna is totally flirting with Maisie’s crush Sebastian! Oh, and Maisie has terrible self-esteem, but that’s always been there.
This book highlights all the reasons that I don’t love journal-style novels. Maisie introduces topics and skips over scenes in the moment to fill in the readers later, making the story more choppy and quasi-suspenseful than is preferred. While I love the message of Maisie’s story -- that we need to love ourselves regardless of how we physically compare to others and the current standard of beauty -- the execution of Maisie’s journal and a lot of Maisie’s choices on the way to that important realization is mediocre. The mature content rating is for underage drinking, innuendo, implied sex, and nudity.
Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

Wow. Just wow. I literally read this book in one and a half sittings (had a flight connection thus the half..). This book is about Maisie who is a teen going through teen stuff - body images, family issues, relationship woes. All the things every teen goes through in her/his lifetime. This book is absolutely remarkable and reminds people that you are your harshest critic, who cares what others think about you and it’s important to love who you are. Although this book deals with a lot (a LOT!), it’s never overwhelming or too much. As I mentioned, I could barely put this book down and would recommend it to anyone and everyone.

A fun quirky book. It starts off hilarious and I feel like its a book that is very diverse in topics. Jenna Guilluaume did a great job developing characters and plot.

I was expecting this book to be for middle grades, but it was clearly not appropriate for that age group based on the content (language, sexual innuendo, etc).

I liked the message of being brave and accepting who you are! Maisey is a 16yr old plus size girl. She’s having BFF, family, and boy drama over her winter holiday. She documents it all in the journal she’s expected to write in for class. I enjoyed seeing her grow in her self confidence.

Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this novel. This was a contemporary YA novel that was about a girl coming to terms with her body and choices all on vacation at the beach while entered into a beauty pageant. This book has several usual YA themes like self esteem, a gay sibling, and family drama. The author used a journal format to tell this story and it works well for main character, Maises voice, Overall an ok read due to language, and overplayed YA tropes.

I enjoyed this book for what it was. I think I would've been disappointed had I not read the summary of what the book was about but I enjoyed it for what I expected the book to be. The writing was easy to follow and I can see this one being a well-liked read.

What I Like about Me is a book with a cute plot. However, I do not think it should be classified under children's literature. There is A LOT of adult language in this book. I don't mind a few curse words in a YA book, but this book had it all the time. The 'f-word' was even utilized multiple times.

It really is a bummer that the language was included in this book. The story is a cute coming-of-age story that I think would have been absolutely relatable to so many students had the language never been included. Because of that, I cannot bring this book into my classroom.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, I received an eArc of this book in exchange for a honest review.

I feel as if I went into this ready to absolutely love it, and came out of it not sure how to feel. There was just something about this book that I didn’t totally fall in love with. It was a good book, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t the five star read I was thinking it was going to be for me.

I’m always looking for the fat girl representation. In a lot of books I feel that the characters are just considered “fat” but are not actually. In this one the girl really is — there are several scenes that really set up she is a big girl — and I really liked those portions because it is so relatable for people like me who struggle to find sizes in stores that don’t look like brown paper bags.

I really appreciated the body positivity in this book — there was nothing in it that made me annoyed at that type of representation. There was quite a bit of diversity in this book, and I was pleased with that.

As I read this I felt just a bit disconnected at times, and I can’t quite put my finger on why that was. There was something that wasn’t there for me.

Other things I liked in this book were the descriptions of friendship, and how there are struggles and happiness.

As someone who went through a friendship situtation/body issues as a teenager, I really felt for Maisie. I could really connect with those feelings. Unlike Maisie however I have not met a friend who is so body positive.

The book was really about her journey over the course of a summer, and it was written in diary form. I think that was what really made me pause — I was having issues with the formatting of the diary, and it felt at times disconnected.

Overall, I think this was a light, fluffy read that a lot of people are going to enjoy!

Assigned to keep a journal over Christmas break, Maisie Martin spends her vacation reflecting on her family issues, her crush on her childhood friend, and tackling her own self-esteem troubles in light of a beauty pageant that was once a dream she and her now estranged sister shared.

Although I am not a fan of the diary format, Maisy's voice shines in this novel. I love how she ends up tacking her body image issues by focusing on the things she likes about herself. This book has a very positive message for young women today, both for those who fit and those who don't fit the modern standard of beauty.

I adored this. An amazing self-esteem centered story told through journal entries, and I absolutely fell in love with this format. I think this is an important book for readers.

Nice first person narrative of a Australian Summer vacation (in other words over Xmas break), and what happened with a crush, and a competitive sisters, and fighting parents.

Masie has to keep a journal, while she is on break, and although she resists it at first, as life continues to throw things at her, she confides more and more in it.

Her best friend just had a break-up.

Her crush since childhood seems more interested in her best friend.

And she meets a girl who sees the beauty in her, and encourages her to enter a beauty contest, despite she being a bit on the plus size.

All very realistic, and Masie's voice is very natural. Well written. Good story.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

This novel was an absolute delight! I flew through it and honestly really enjoyed every page. I tend to stay away from self-image-centric books because yikes. I'd rather not go there. But this one was really good at spreading the body-positive message without being overbearing.

The plot, while quite predictable, was still super cute and fun. I honestly didn't mind that I knew pretty much exactly what was going to happen. It was fun to read regardless. The writing reminded me a lot of Carolyn Mackler or Sarah Dessen, and reading What I Like About Me felt like I was reading some of my first YA books again. Man, nostalgia. Somehow this book is ultra on par with pop culture while still making me ache for the times when I was a young teen.

What I Like About Me is laugh-out-loud funny (seriously!), profound without trying, and an all 'round Good Book. Definitely check it out if you're a YA fan!

A wonderful book about acceptance in all forms - body acceptance, self-esteem, relationships, family, friendships. I hope we hear more from Jenna Guilluaume!

Such a cute quick read! It reminded me of Dumplin I absolutely loved it. Beamer is one of my favorite book characters he is so unexpected.

I like the format of the book, but I found the narrator to be quite annoying and not really well fleshed out. The author tried too hard to sound like a teenager and it shows.