Girl Meets Class was a shallow attempt to recreate a "Dangerous Minds" scenario. On no planet does a new teacher end up with a special needs school/class and find immediate success. Teaching in public schools is an incredibly difficult and underpaid job, and I do not believe this novel gave that experience the deference it deserves. Toni Lee Wells was an infuriatingly shallow character that I could not support. On principle, I never DNF a book, but I got very close with this one. I could see the potential, so I gave it 2 stars.

What a fun (and funny) premise and a very cute execution. Toni Lee Wells's drive and goal oriented ways change to a path of eventful self-destruction when her promising tennis career gets cut short by an injury. When she gets cut off (financially) by her rich family and gets offered an alternative - to find and hold a job for a year in order to get a hefty inheritance - Toni quickly chooses what she perceives as a shortcut. What she expects to be an easy teaching gig turns out to be a job at a school full of kids who will challenge her in many ways. Of course easy on the eyes Carl is there to show her the ropes. Except Toni still finds a way to put her new life (and love) at risk.

Pick this up if you enjoy heartwarming, lighthearted stories of second chances especially the ones featuring a sassy Southern belle as the main character!

A big thank you to NetGalley and Henery Press for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Overall a good story, but did struggle to stay invested in the characters throughout. Ended up skimming a bit, sadly. Would recommend but not my favorite.

Toni-Lee grew up with one goal in mind and devoted her whole life to that one goal - to become one of the world's best tennis players. Tennis was her whole life, that was until she ended up breaking her wrist and her career ended. As someone who recently has finally gotten over my injury - it has taken nearly 2 years to heal my broken wrist to a reasonable state. For Toni-Lee, as she also had her family's money her life becomes a rollercoaster party train of drinking and acting out. Now six months on, her father has picked her up from the police station once again and has had enough. He can't handle his daughter's destruction anymore. He calls Aunt Cornelia - Toni-Lee's mothers sister, she is where the money comes from and is the tough one. She has devised a plan to get Toni-Lee back on track and find a passion and cuts Toni-Lee's income. Toni-Lee needs a job and ends up getting one teaching the Special Ed Kids at Harriet High. If she can keep her job for a year, she will inherit her trust fund of 5 million dollars. At first, Toni is seen as a spoilt brat but as the book goes along and she falls for Carl, one of the fellow teachers - she starts to enjoy her job and care for the kids. What will happen though when she is blackmailed to keep her job and then her life spirals out of control once more when the guy she loves Carl leaves her? Can Toni-Lee prove to those around her and the ones closest to her that she has changed and that along the way her job became about the kids and not the money. Girl Meets Class was a cozy chick-lit read and reading this reminded me how much I had enjoyed the books that Henery Press published as when this company first started publishing about 2012-2013 I was one of the first reviewers to read/review their books published.

This book intrigued me because I am an educator in a public school. While it was interesting how often so many of Toni Lee’s struggles are real in schools across America, one thing was solidly not: a person without a bachelor’s degree and a teaching certificate and a special ed certificate would not be hired at any campus to work with SPED students. This element of the storyline REALLY bugged me.

This book is humorous, heartwarming, and heartbreaking. The author eloquently establishes the playing field for Toni Lee and her coworkers. Clearly, from the beginning readers are supposed to root for and support her and Harriet Hall.

Toni Lee is a washed-up tennis player. After a wrist injury that changes the trajectory of her life, Toni takes full advantage of her trust fund spoiled brat status. When she is arrested, her Aunt Cordelia (who runs the family food company, which is the source of their wealth), has had enough. She stamps out this churlish, embarrassing behavior. There’s an ultimatum: keep a job that is actually challenging for a year, walk away with five million.

To Toni, that’s the easiest thing ever. Until she realizes she gets cut off while doing so. No more lush condo. No allowance. When the Harriet Hall SPED position pops up, Toni jumps at it and quickly finds herself in an unknown part of her own city she never knew existed. As much as she doesn’t want to be there, she finds her kids don’t want to be there even more. Through building relationships with these kids and the addition of a new student to the mix changes everything for Toni.

She struggles to hide her newfound reality from her friends, and her true self with her new coworkers. In the end, Toni finds a new woman beneath the layers she’s piled on and what I liked most about this new Toni was that she moved forward in life with integrity.

The book also has a focus on the naive perspective an individual can have walking into public education – and the realities Toni faced are not just at inner-city schools. I face these challenges at my school, which is too property wealthy (yet portables at every campus) that we fall under the “Robin Hood” legislation and must pay out several hundred thousand dollars to poorer districts. There are not desks from this century, and any minute you one of the crappily welded legs can go flying and drop a person (this happened to me this year) or it can bend and become a shank to any unsuspecting passerby. No air conditioning except in the office until students arrive. And that’s not even in a portable! Broken faucets. How are we supposed to promote good hygiene? Behavior students who seem to magically be placed in the exact same classes and prohibit learning from happening. Admin turning the other cheeck or pretending they don’t hear the most vital complaints and needs of teachers to make our primary job role (TEACHING!) possible. Referrals for repeat offenders deleted. Admin admitting they should have sent students to the alternative campus due to behavior, and yet continuing to do the same things and not addressing misbehavior and disruptions as serious classroom issues. Admin that are fearful of parents, so they must have a 1000% customer service role. This is education today, and Toni wasn’t making up anything in her teaching experience.

Toni encounters corruption and political agendas individuals have in public education. She finds that there are some straight jackass people who teach students. This is true. I have encountered this too, and I’m like “Why? Why are you here?”

I enjoyed seeing Toni become strong. A strong woman, a strong employee, a strong individual within her family unit. She got some class. Overall, a great ultimate feel-good read that takes some turns and requires some strong backbone.

Girl Meets Class was a cute story about a pampered young woman, whose rich Aunt Cordelia decides that she needs a wake up call. She is told she needs to get and hold a job for one year, pay her own way and follow her aunt's stringent rules about public drunkenness etc. or she will be disinherited. Sounds simple enough but this is one spoiled young lady. After a serious injury takes her off the pro tennis circuit, she wallows in self pity making a spectacle of herself. With nothing but a general degree, where will she find a job that will pay her enough to live? Toni-Lee Wells ends up teaching a Special Education class in a very poor school, where caring for the kids is probably more important than what you teach them.

This was a wonderful story. There was some humour, although not as much as I had anticipated. I enjoyed listening to the story as this young lady learned about how others lived, what it was like to be poor, what is important in life and falling in love with the wrong man, who turns out to be the right one. With a corrupt principal, nasty secretary and backstabbing staff, will Toni-Lee survive the year she needs to put in? Will Toni-Lee sell her integrity for five million dollars or wake up and realize what is really important? This is one story about a poor little rich girl getting a whole lot of lessons on life from the other side and the other side getting a whole new Toni-Lee as a result. This is one entertaining and engaging page turner.

This was such a good read! Girl Meets Class is a story about Toni Lee Wells, a rich spoiled young woman whose pro tennis career is suddenly derailed by an injury and is forced to spend a year teaching in an inner city project high school in order to win back her inheritance.

I enjoyed this novel from the writing, to the storyline through to the end. This is the first book I’ve read by Karen Gillespie and based on her writing style it certainly won’t be the last. A common theme written throughout the story was the idea that although money can provide a nice comfortable life, it can’t buy you happiness and sometimes it makes you feel entitled and makes you do things that aren’t nice.

Another theme is that the promise of money and a lavish lifestyle can completely change who a person is and make them act a certain way but having money is never an excuse to be physically abusive (or any other type of abuse) and it’s never okay to knowingly hurt another person. You should never stay in an abusive relationship and you should seek the help of close friends if you need support getting out of this type of situation.

There was also a theme that sometimes terrible people do terrible things when they’re in a position of power. It never fails to amaze me that some people will do horrific things to stay in power, including getting people fired. allowing innocent people be sent to jail, and ignoring reporting dangerous people that have committed crimes. As you might be able to tell from the themes written into the story, this novel covers serious topics, but in a light-hearted sort of way. I enjoyed this novel and would recommend it.

A delightful story of discovering your true self and what is really important.