28791088Adorkable (ah-dor-kuh-bul): Descriptive term meaning to be equal parts dorky and adorable. For reference, see Sally Spitz.

Seventeen-year-old Sally Spitz is done with dating. Or at least, she’s done with the horrible blind dates/hookups/sneak attacks her matchmaking bestie, Hooker, sets her up on. There’s only so much one geek girl and Gryffindor supporter can take.

Her solution: she needs a fake boyfriend. And fast.

Enter Becks, soccer phenom, all-around-hottie, and Sally’s best friend practically since birth. When Sally asks Becks to be her F.B.F. (fake boyfriend), Becks is only too happy to be used. He’d do anything for Sal–even if that means giving her PDA lessons in his bedroom, saying she’s “more than pretty,” and expertly kissing her at parties.

The problem: Sally’s been in love with Becks all her life–and he’s completely clueless.

This book features two best friends, one special edition Yoda snuggie, countless beneath-the-ear kisses and begs the question:

Who wants a real boyfriend when faking it is so much more fun?

Adorkable was a cute read and in parts funny. The book did raise a question though- why are the geeks always associated with Harry Potter, Star Wars/Trek and calculus? Are there no other type of geeks? I mean I had to Google the whole geek thing and apparently there’s a debate over geek v nerd and I’m still none the wiser. Assuming I was brainy and a computer wiz and what not BUT didn’t like Harry Potter nor cared for Star Wars/Trek does that discount my geekiness? Is it even possible to be a geek and not be interested in those default ‘items’?  Why have I not read about geeks/nerds in books who have nothing to do with Harry Potter or Darth Vader?

Adorkable is a story of boyfriendless geeky Sally Spitz. Her mother and best friend Lillian Hooker set Sally up on dates because she’s a senior and is still single. Gasps and horrified faces all around! In wedding-planner-Mom’s and matchmaker-Hooker’s books not having a BF is like sacrilege or something. I get it, it can seem like a matter of life and death to have someone to hold hands with because being single is so bloody weird and single people are weird and there has to be something wrong with them…[that was sarcasm by the way]. So, naturally, Mom and Hooker annoyed me and Sally had no backbone to tell them to go where the sun doesn’t shine because obviously she didn’t really want any of those dates. Besides, bad dates will only make one lose faith in humanity, especially the opposite sex and if you have 12465235 of those bad dates a year then I am not surprised one’s self esteem gets a blow in the nether regions.

Enter Operation: Fake Boyfriend. To get Mom and Hooker off Sally’s back, she comes up with the FBF plan. And as ‘fate’ would have it, enter bestest friend Becks. Player on the soccer field, player with the girls but always there to help a friend. All popular chicks fall over at his feet, pop out their hips at him, touch his ‘lucky beard’, sit in his lap every chance they get and show off cleavage. Yeah, ’nuff said. I’m all for going what you want, but JFC, hold on to a bit of self esteem, fictional popular girls! As a side note, this is a problem I have with the ‘popular girl’ character in any of these high-school themed books: they’re always so darned bitchy on their high horses with their cleavages, blond hair and mini skirts. If a story needs a popular girl, then I’d like the author to add a moral to the story whereby it’s made clear that showing tits or acting like a really sticky band-aid at the guys hips does not necessarily give you a genuine relationship! Isn’t it about time to introduce the feminist agenda to YA books? I mean, self respecting, strong and independent girls? Where are they?

Sally+Becks friendship is really just stated as a fact. Other than an event of Becks cooking for Sal and her mom (apparently once a week) there was really no other scenes in the book to actually portray their friendship dynamics. And I can’t get my head around those two and their fake relationship if I don’t know how they actually were as friends… because- I have soooooooo much to say about this whole thing but I can’t because nobody likes spoilers, right? It was simply frustrating to read! Character behaviour was just very hard for me to relate… anyway… cryptic! 🙂

I still have to admit I liked this book. It was very entertaining, cute and well executed. The story was clean- as in no heavy petting sessions and as always I am won over by subtle humor and quirkiness. A lovely character trait for Sally was the fact she switched over to speaking German when she was anxious or angry and it added some interesting twists 🙂 

My rating: 3 cheesy stars.