With all the love stories out there, it's sometimes difficult to find one that can really touch your heart. When I was given "About A Girl", the novel was quite confusing at the beginning. It's not the happy ending-kind of story, but it's still one of the warmest and sweetest love stories I've ever read.
About a Girl by Joanne Horniman
When Anna moves out, she's lonely at first, but
then she meets Flynn and immediately falls in
love with her - the beginning of an incredibly
sweet love story. The more time they spend with
each other, the more they learn to love each
other, but the more they get to know each other,
they're also confronted with the one difference
between the two: For Flynn it's the first time
dating another girl.
The novel makes the reader unstand that things
would be easier for them if one of them was a
boy, on one hand because they would earlier find
the guts to show their love in public and on the
other hand because they would earlier understand
that what's between is more than friendship. It's
great that the world "lesbian" never appears;
instead seen from Anna's perspective it's the
most ordinary thing in the world. Also, there are
two perspectives, since while Flynn is dating a
girl for the first time, Anna says she's known
since she was six that she likes girls. Such
sweet but still genuine descriptions of falling
in love are super rare and the hints to their
secrets let suspense rise continously -
especially in the third part of the novel.
The long flashback in the second part takes away some suspense as the reader would rather find out more about Anna and Flynn. Also, at some point it reminds one more of a fiel report or a biography than a novel.
Beautifully written but rather a report than a novel. Not a typical love story including romance and a happy end but full of warmth, thrill and young people finding their place in the world. An absolutely beautiful and warm story that every young adult looking for his or her own identity and place in this world should read!
