The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading by Charity Tahmaseb and Darcy Vance

The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading
by Charity Tahmaseb and Darcy Vance

author’s website: thegeekgirlsguide.com/wordpress
release date: May 19, 2009
appeals to: Young Adult
genre: Contemporary
length: 352 pages
overall rating: 4 Stars

*the back cover*
When Bethany – self-proclaimed geek girl – makes the varsity cheerleading squad, she realizes that there’s one thing worse than blending in with the lockers: getting noticed. She always felt comfortable as part of the nerd herd, but being a member of the most scrutinized group in her school is weighing her down like a ton of textbooks. Even her varsity cheerleading guide can’t answer the really tough questions, like: How do you maintain some semblance of dignity while wearing an insanely short skirt? What do you do when the head cheerleader spills her beer on you at your first in-crowd party”? And how do you know if your crush likes you for your mind . . . or your pom-poms?
One thing’s for sure: It’s going to take more than brains for this girl genius to cheer her way to the top of the pyramid.

*my review*
I really enjoyed this story – much more than I thought I would! I love the idea of breaking down the high-school clique stereotypes, and this novel did just that. Even better, it was realistically done – a girl who is a geek one day will not just be accepted as queen of the school the next day, and this novel makes that point. I like that Bethany and Moni weren’t just automatically popular because of cheerleading. Even more, I liked that their geeky friends weren’t hugely accepting of the change to cheerleader. Overall, I thought the book was a realistic look at what might happen if the geeky girl made the cheer squad.

*short and snappy*
writing: casual – reading this story felt like a conversation with Bethany over a cup of coffee, which made it fun to read
plot: simple, but realistic – there are ups, downs, and the occasional twist
characters: varied – Bethany was well developed, but I would have liked to learn more about Jack and even Moni.
judging by the cover: cute cover – it is what actually got me to pick up the book – I hadn’t heard of it before seeing it on the library shelf