PLOT: 3/5
CHARACTERS: 4/5
WRITING STYLE: 4/5
CLIMAX: 4/5
ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 5/5
What’s a Girl Gotta Do? is the third instalment of Holly Bourne‘s Spinster Club series. And this is my favourite book of the three.
I am very sceptical about picking up YA novels because they, more or less, tend to be about meeting the love of your life while you are in your teens, which gets a bit weary for me as a reader.
But this book was so good that I ended up finishing it in one sitting.
“I want to change things on my own terms, to show that there’s no right or wrong way to change the world. There’s no test. You don’t need to suck anything up. Pay any dues. Just you and your anger and your voice enough. If you only have the courage to use it.”
Getting into the story of What’s a Girl Gotta Do?, Lottie, Amber and Evie are three friends who start their spinster club, which essentially is a feminist club to reclaim the word. They are all amazing in their own way.
Lottie is the driving force – she is the spirit and she is the protagonist of this story. She owns her sexuality, she is smart, beautiful (not that it should matter), knows her worth and also aspires to get into Cambridge. She encounters sexual harassment on the street, gets really shaken up by it and wants to change all of it. She wants to change the world, even if they are pretty lofty ideas for a teenager.
And thus starts a month-long project of calling out sexism in her everyday life. It might seem like a bonkers idea but that’s what makes her endearing. In this month-long journey, she gets exhausted a lot and also wants to give up on everything, but she endures.
Here’s the agenda of her project and the book:
How to start a feminist revolution:
- Call out anything that is unfair on one gender
- Don’t call out the same thing twice (so you can sleep and breathe)
- Always try to keep it funny.
- Don’t let anything slide. Even when you start to break…
Lottie is determined to change the world with her #Vagilante vlog.
Holly Bourne will be in my list of favourite writers from here on. I was sceptical when I was reading the first book, I warmed up to her in the next one and in the third, I absolutely loved her because I didn’t know this is the story I needed.
I was always hesitant to say “I am a feminist” in case I antagonized people along the way, but after reading What’s a Girl Gotta Do? I got the strength to say exactly how I feel about women rights and the world we live in.
Will I recommend the book? Definitely yes!
Go for it. Because it shows what it takes to fight something bigger than you. It’s not easy, but it will ultimately be worth it because every one of us wants to.
To quote from the book:
“I wanted to be the sort of person who could face themselves in the mirror.”
Can’t wait to read it? Buy your copy of What’s a Girl Gotta Do? using the link below.
