Review: Pretty in Punxsutawney by Laurie Boyle Crompton

Title: Pretty in Punxsutawney

Author:  Laurie Boyle Crompton
Publisher:  Blink
Publishing Date:  January 5th, 2019

Pages: 304
Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Series:  Stand Alone
Source:  ARC 

 

A Groundhog Day meets Pretty in Pink mashup from author Laurie Boyle Crompton, Pretty in Punxsutawney tells the tale of a girl willing to look beneath the surface to see people for who they really are.

Andie is the type of girl who always comes up with the perfect thing to say…after it’s too late to say it. She’s addicted to romance movies—okay, all movies—but has yet to experience her first kiss. After a move to Punxsutawney, PA, for her senior year, she gets caught in an endless loop of her first day at her new school, reliving those 24 hours again and again.

Convinced the curse will be broken when she meets her true love, Andie embarks on a mission: infiltrating the various cliques to find the one boy who can break the spell. What she discovers along the way is that people who seem completely different can often share the very same hopes, dreams, and hang-ups. And that even a day that has been lived over and over can be filled with unexpected connections and plenty of happy endings.

I was so very excited for this book. I mean look at this cover. It just drew me in. The name.... I am not sure where Punxsutawney is but it's fun to try to say. The synopsis.... I mean Pretty in Pink, Breakfast Club, and Groundhog Day all in the same story. So yes I was really looking forward to this read. Unfortunately, it fell a little short of my expectations. 

Andie has moved to a new town. She moved over the summer and so far has met two people... boys that work at the local movie theater, a place she where she loves to hang... The boys...well a nerdy theater geek and a good looking popular flirt. Of course she knows who she wants to hang out with... with the new school year starting, she has a foil proof plan. Have this boy show her around school then make him fall madly in love with her. 

Well nothing goes as planned when she wakes up the next morning on the couch in a pink polka dot vintage dress... and late. She goes to school and nothing goes according to her plan.... well this is how the school year is bound to go... except not, since the next day is a repeat and now Andie has a second chance, after screwing it all up again, she finds she has yet a third chance, and a fourth, and well many many more... until she gets it right. She just needs to figure out what right is. 

Okay there were many things I liked about this book. I liked the references to the 80's movies, I liked many of the secondary characters, I liked the message I think was supposed to coming through the pages. There were some cute parts and some funny parts... and the idea was just so cute, but really it ends there. 

What I didn't really like... I didn't much care for the main character. I mean she thought she could learn about life through the old movies she loved to watch with her mother. She was rude and whiny at times and I felt she was very superficial. Now I can say she does grow some throughout the book, but really not as much as I hoped. 

The story was pretty fast paced for the most part, but there were times I found myself a little bored. I was really getting tired of the same thing every day except for the group she tried to infiltrate. I just felt she was getting nowhere time after time. Of course I also kept thinking... at any time the light bulb will come on and both me and Andie will see where this is going and the ending will be epic. Except that didn't happen. Andie I guess finally figure it out but it wasn't epic, it was just... oh okay well now life can move forward... it was just a meh feeling. 

The romance. I think this was supposed to be a romance. I didn't feel the romance at all. I felt it could have been so much more. I really loved the love interest. He was great. He was my favorite character. I figured once Andie figured out how great he was... again it would be epic, the kiss would be epic, there would be fireworks, and eye popping, and heart warming... it was only oh yup about time. 

There really wasn't any strong relationships building. With all the people Andie was getting to know and discovering what was special about them. The next morning came and was a on replay... Andie just abandoned who she befriend the day before and moved on. It was kind of sad really. 

I kept thinking is this a book about friendships, is it about accepting people for who they are and coming together, is it about opposites attract, is it about finding right guy. In the end I just didn't feel a part of the story, I didn't feel satisfied. 

I loved and adored the idea, the execution lacked. I did enjoy the writing style... so even though this story fell flat for me, I think I would give this author one more try. 



It just didn't hit the mark for me. 

Laurie Boyle Crompton is the YA author of PRETTY IN PUNXSUTAWNEY (Blink/HarperCollins 2019) as well as ADRENALINE CRUSH (Macmillan/2014, Square Fish/2016), BLAZE (or Love in the Time of Supervillains), THE REAL PROM QUEENS OF WESTFIELD HIGH and LOVE AND VANDALISM (Sourcebooks/2013, 2014, 2017). Growing up in ‘Pennsyltucky’ in the 1980s, Laurie couldn't wait to escape rural life. After saving up her tips from waitressing at a local greasy spoon at 18 she packed up her acid wash jeans and moved to NY. Where everyone else had stopped wearing acid wash.

She graduated first in her class from St. John’s University with a BA in English and Journalism. Since then she’s written for national magazines like ALLURE, survived a teaching stint at an all-boy high school, and appeared on Good Day New York several times as a Toy Expert. And yes, ‘toy expert’ is an actual profession. Really.

She has lived in places like Orlando, Florida where she and her husband spent all of their spare time and money visiting theme parks before moving to the Cotswolds in England for six months, which was every bit as cool as that sounds. The Cromptons are now back in New York where their two children resent never going to Disney.

Laurie occasionally enjoys hanging out in fields of blooming flowers and also reffering to herself in the third person.