This book was pretty bland, and the MC was unlikable (and there were not many supporting characters, as the plot revolves around Josie exploring her failed Broadway fantasies through magical books). I love Shannon Hale, but this book was not for me.

Going in I had no idea that this was a contemporary fantasy. I thought it was just contemporary and honestly…. it might’ve been better that way.

The magical part of the book really left me wanting. The big bad is magical, but we don’t really get the full picture of that until well, actually kinda never. There’s no explanation for where they come from, or how the magic really functions, just how they do their evil deeds. And we get to see the magic work for itself over the course of the book.

Josie is a pretty sweet character all things considered. She’s pretty mopey because she didn’t make it big when all she’d been told was that she would make it big. I think most ex-gifted kids can relate to that a little, although Josie was REALLY wallowing.

There was also an exceedingly weird almost-non-existent-but-written-in love triangle looking thing that seemed incredibly forced.

Josie’s adventures entertained me enough to keep reading, and Shannon Hale did manage to make a likeable character out of a washed-up theatre kid which I’m still impressed by.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Lots of interesting ideas, but it never came together for me. It all felt superficial and overly constructed. I never had a sense of the characters, so I didn't really care about Josie's feelings or struggles.

I enjoyed this book. I found it to be a unique and interesting take on the coming-of-age/teen-angst motif. It was fun seeing the heroine interact with the books that she found herself "falling into." All in all, a nice escape for the reader as well.

Well this book might be called Kind of a Big Deal but the story really kind of wasn't. The writing in this one just didn't work for me at all. It was full of snippets from other stories and was just so bad. Josie was just so annoying and the romance was just ugh. I finally gave up with this one and just couldn't finish it at all.

I received an e-arc of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I so wanted to love this book because what book lover doesn't dream of slipping into their favorite story for even a minute but unfortunately this fell flat for me. The overall writing style was fine but it was the lack of connection that I felt to the main character that really brought this book down for me. I was just never able to feel like I understood her and the decisions she made throughout the book.

The romance was also very confusing to me. I felt like we were supposed to be hoping for one thing and ended up completely blindsided as the climax of the story came about. As a matter of fact I'm still completely reeling from the plot twist that happened and it's many hours later when I'm writing this review. There didn't seem to be any indication that this would be how things would play out and it just didn't sit well with me.

There's also some mentions of mental health issues and I'm not sure how well those were portrayed in this book. I especially wasn't a fun of how things were handled with the girl she was a nanny for. It felt like some really outdated thoughts towards what was being presented as maybe some ocd tendencies though it is never out right said. Over all I feel like this could've been handled better.

Overall the writing wasn't bad but the execution of the plot lost me.

2/5 stars

DNF

The characterization really doesn't work for me. I understand that it's going over the top for humor, but that just captures how much this is about a concept more than a character, and I read for characters. I was hoping this would be a tad more realistic contemporary, aside from the book hopping. I'm not the right reader for this one.

I couldn’t finish this book. I’ve heard such awesome things about Hale’s other books but this one was just flat out bad. The writing style was blah and the characters were even more blah.

Josie Pie headed to NYC at 17 to make it big on Broadway. Back home she was the Big Fish in the Little Pond. Her drama teacher was living vicariously through her. Within a year Josie Pie realized that her theater career peaked in high school.

Now she is a nanny in Missoula, Montana, and she is avoiding the realities of her failing relationships with her boyfriend and best friend.

One day she buys a book at a book store and finds herself IN the story. She begins to visit other stories and soon finds that she an manipulate the story. Will Josie stay too long in the story world? What will she discovers on these visits to the fictitious worlds?

Kind of a Big Deal is an enjoyable YA novel about growing up and realizing who you are and what is important.

Thank you NetGalley and Roaring Brook Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Kind of a Big Deal
By: Shannon Hale

Macmillian Children's Publishing

Roaring Brook Press

Teens and YA

Publish Date August 25, 2020

#KindofaBigDeal

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I want to thank Net Galley for the chance to review all these book I have received lately. Only a few haven't been very good and for the most part I have enjoyed the books I have received.

This book surprised me and I ended up enjoying it. I was afraid at the start that I wasn't going to like it but ended up enjoying it enough to give it 4 stars.

This book is about a high school drop out who is learning herself. She only dropped out of school to go to Broadway because of the encouragement of her drama teacher who gave her high hopes.

She didn't do well and ends up being a Nanny to a little and living in Montana. She starts introducing herself to make friends but always adds that she is a big deal which of course turns people off.

One day she and her charge go to a bookstore and she gets a book and some reading glasses because all of sudden she can't see the words on the page clearly.

They go to a park and her charge goes and plays with the other children and she sits down to read and has to put on the glasses. She finds herself inside the story and at first she doesn't understand what is happening. She recognizes the people but they have different names and different lives.

She is able to pull out of the story with hardly any time missing. She is excited and intrigued about what happens.

Later at home she try's to read the story again to go back into the book and she can't. She doesn't understand why she can't.

She goes back to the bookstore and gets another book and goes back to the park and she is able to enter into the new story. She thinks it is either the tea that a friend is giving her or the park bench she is sitting on. She is gone longer this time and it worries her charge.

She finally figures out what is causing her to go into the story line and then she learns that she can't leave and has to figure how to get back to the real world. In the process of this she learns a lot about herself and what she truly wants.

It is a little slow at the beginning but really does get better especially when she enters into the books.

I would recommend that you give this book a try.

Although I had a hard time connecting to the protagonist and investing in the story at the beginning, the premise of this novel was fun and engaging.

This is a fun book for teens who like reading in a lot of different genres. The idea of being able to go into a story and live in that world will be appealing for many readers.

Josie was kind of a big deal in high school: she was destined to be Broadway's next Big Thing. But when she drops out of her senior year to pursue that dream, at the behest of her drama teacher, she is a Big Flop. So she ends up nannying in Missoula, Montana, where she gets back into reading. But she doesn't just read words on the page; she falls into the story-- and she can control the story! As she "lives" these different characters' lives in different genres, she learns how to be less self-centered, growing into her adult self in this hilarious coming-of-age story.

This story is hilarious! And the audiobook narrator did a wonderful job with it! It may be a bit immature for older teens, so it's a great young YA story, which we need more of.

1.5/5 Stars

After dropping out of high school, Josie Pie moved to New York to live out her dream of Broadway. Unfortunately, she wasn't as big of a deal as she thought. She has also been feeling that her bestfriend Nina, and boyfriend, Justin, have been growing distant ever since she left. She moves to Montana and becomes a nanny for a 5 year old girl named Mia. On a walk one day, they stumble upon a bookstore and decide to go in. She buys a book, then goes to the park, where she begins her book. Next thing Josie knows, she is sucked into the story, literally becoming the main character in the book. She quickly becomes obsessed with diving into the next story she can get her hands on, forgetting her real life along the way.

I was not a fan of the writing style. It was very repetitive and stilted. I also hated Josie, she was annoying and whiny and drove me insane, thinking she was so much better than everyone else. She is obsessed with her high school boyfriend...who she hasn't talked to in months... but took his last name, Pie, as her stage name. But as soon as she meets a new boy, Deo, she begins having feelings for him almost instantly. The only reason I finished the book was because it was so short, but it honestly felt like a chore to finish.

Kind of a Big Deal tells the story of Josie Pie who is hiding out from her own life as a nanny in Montana. Josie’s hiding because she ran off to NYC to become a Broadway star...which became a dream that never materialized.. Disillusioned and embarrassed, Josie decides to become a nanny to make ends meet while she figures out what to do with her life. Things get weird for us (the readers) and for Josie when she finds herself falling into the plots of the books she’s reading.

I wanted to LOVE this book,! Shannon Hale is an incredible author, and I’ve enjoyed so many of her books, but I just couldn’t connect with Kind of a Big Deal. Josie’s mortification and aimlessness were totally believable given her age and situation, but I just felt like SO many distracting things were going on?! The falling into the worlds of books jarred me from actually connecting with the characters or discerning the plot? I also didn’t love the romantic storyline...Justin was barely in the book, so when he did show up I didn’t care? I also felt like the narrative at the end told rather than showed Josie’s growth into a less self-absorbed teen?

However, if you’re ready for zany story and love books about books this could be a fabulous choice for you!

I had high hopes going into this book but I ended up not enjoying it. Firstly, I thought the concept was super unique and interesting but it fell flat. The main character was displeasing and juvenile. The story became repetitive quickly and had no real momentum. The friendship between Josie and Nina felt forced and unrealistic. Josie and Justin’s “relationship” felt the same way, and I felt no connection or desire to see them end up together. It felt like there was no timeline for the relationship, as they had always been together and in love until they weren’t. As for the stories Josie was sucked into, they felt repetitive and had no pacing, with mediocre side characters that had no time to properly develop. Overall, too much about the story never clicked with me, felt unrealistic, and generally childish for a story about someone who is supposed to be mature and independent in the world.

Ok, this book was a strange one... it starts out well, you feel for Josie and how she must be struggling with her life not turning out as expected, but then things take a turn. When Josie is sucked into her first book it seems kind of fun, it's interesting to see how she quickly learns to take control of the stories she is in and who doesn't love a swashbuckling romance turned into a musical. But as the stories progress and you see Josie's friends and family in the stories, it starts to feel forced. You also start to like Josie less and less. It seems like she treated those closest to her poorly and expected her dreams to come true with little to no work because she was "kind of a big deal." Her big journey of personal growth seems like a journey a middle school kid should be learning vs. an essentially grown up woman. And, without giving anything away, the discussion of muses late in the book seems like a poor attempt to give larger meaning to Josie and the story that is, again, downright strange. Overall, there were some enjoyable parts, but it was a strange, strange book.

This was not what I was expecting; I didn't finish the novel. What I did finish was hard to get through. The main character was just not as easy to connect to as I was anticipating. But I love the cover at least!

This was a fun book about Josie Pie, a nanny who was a New York wannabe before moving to the Midwest. While she is focused on her dreams being unfulfilled, she meets an odd bookseller. What happens from here is at time funny, but also allows for Josie to mature into a truly functioning adult who see what is important in life. Definitely a fun read for book nerds!

Ever wonder what it would be like to be in the mind of an 18-year-old girl, newly dropped out of high school, thrown into a semi-adult life not of her own design or even her own rebellion? What if you were that girl, and you were a big deal in high school, and suddenly, in the ocean of real life, you became a very small "fish?" You're on your own, nannying a preschooler, not sure what to do next. This is the life of Josie "Pie," the "star" of Kind of a Big Deal by Shannon Hale.

It's likely that we can all relate to Josie's "little-fish-in-a-big-pond-after-being-a-big-fish-in-a-little-pond" feelings, and therein lies the general appeal of this book. It's also likely that readers of almost any age will enjoy the imaginative journeys Josie takes as literal characters in the books she reads. And the insights she gains from a wise friend are likely to be treasured by at least a few.

However, I would have to agree with most of the other reviewers of this book, even though I love Shannon Hale's other books. Josie didn't seem to grow much as a character, and the progressively worse circumstances that should drive her development don't seem to get that progressively worse. With most young adult books, I enjoy having to get into the mind of a younger character to understand why they care so much about certain things and not about others. With this one, I had a hard time leaving my 50-year-old-mother self behind.

For instance, Josie seemed somewhat immature for her age, although I realize that maturity levels can vary a lot at any age (I have a 17-year-old, so I have some context). This book didn't straddle the middle-grade/young-adult line very well; her age would usually make this a book designed for young adult readers, but it definitely felt more high middle-grade range. And I kept wondering how Josie's mother would have been okay with letting her daughter drop out of school to audition on Broadway, with no real clue as to whether or not she'd be called back and no plan as to what to do if it didn't work out. I think we're supposed to think that Josie's mother is not quite all there, but that feels like a weak leg on which to perch most of this story. And, of course, since most of Josie's story-travelling exploits happen while she's watching her ward, Mia, in public places, I couldn't leave behind the worry that something would happen to Mia.

Maybe this is just because I'm a helicopter mother in a pandemic world trying to read for fun and just not able to let go of real life enough to enjoy the story. Maybe it's because I was looking for the same kind of writing I enjoyed in Hale's other books, especially in Book of a Thousand Days, Goose Girl, and Austenland; it was so much tighter and its characters so much more interesting. Either way, Kind of a Big Deal was kind of not a big deal for me.

That being said, the vignettes of wisdom Josie's wise friend Nina provides were super poignant for me. I especially liked:

"This moment isn't everything, you know. It feels like it's everything, but we are both of us so much more than what we are in this second. We are who we used to be, who we are now, and who we will become. Even if we can't see it, we are never-ending, eternal, with limitless potential, the magnificent way that God sees us."

and

"We tend to think of life as all linear, as if each moment, each year, has to be better than the last, and if it's not, we failed. But we're all of it at the same time. And then some. So be patient with yourself. Don't judge yourself by any one moment."

Wise, wise words. Nina was a soul I could connect with, even though I didn't see her much in the book.

If you are an 18-year-old girl, you will likely enjoy reading about someone who maybe struggles with problems similar to yours. If you are not an 18-year-old girl, or not able to imagine yourself as one, good luck.