I LOVED THIS STORY!! It was absolutely hilarious, right from the start to end! I also enjoyed the character development of Haylah, where she went from being a slightly insecure girl to a strong, confident young woman.  This shows that challenges help a person grow stronger and become a better version of themselves.  I also loved how themes of feminism and self-confidence were all mentioned in the story.  Women shall choose to be whoever they want to be, and shall never sell themselves short for the opposite sex.  This is definitely a must read!!!

This is what I would call a typical teen novel. There is angst, bad decisions, a cute boy, parental issues.
What I liked: feminist ideas, strong single mom, quirky and diverse characters handling big issues (weight, race, SES)
What I didn't like: narrator's bravado (a little unlikeable at times), some overly fast plot points that felt very manufactured, word choice that sometimes felt inauthentic. 

Overall, humor and girl power sum up the book. 

*copy via Netgalley*

http://humbleopinionblog.com/2020/07/09/arc-pretty-funny-for-a-girl/

IMHO, this is a sweet, light read that brought a smile to my face. Perfect for breezy summer day, this is a lovely addition to the YA genre.

All Haylah really thinks about is “funny.” She’s constantly thinking about how she could use the words people say, the words she reads, every little event in her life is mined for “funny”. Because to Haylah, the most meaningful thing in the world is making someone else laugh.

When the gorgeous Leo Jackson performs a stand up routine at an assembly, Haylah is instantly smitten. When she suddenly gets the chance to help him write his sets, she is overjoyed – even though she isn’t getting any credit.

Haylah has figured out how to find the “funny” in every part of her life: taking care of her energetic brother, her mom’s new boyfriend, rude remarks about her plus sized figure. But what she hasn’t found is the confidence to do thing she most wants to – get up on a stage and make people laugh.

A little bit romantic, a little bit cliche, a little bit sad and a whole lot of funny, Pretty Funny for a Girl is a lovely book.

****SPOILERS FROM HERE ON****

CHARACTER:

⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
One thing that I appreciated is that none of the characters are entirely in the right. Every single character did something annoying or wasn’t in the right at least once. I went from disliking Haylah’s friends and not getting why she hung out with them, to understanding their value over the span of 20 pages.

Pretty Funny for a Girl stands out among similar stories because of the way Elliott handles conflict among her characters. They all get called out for the shitty things they do/say to each other, it’s not swept under the rug. In a genre where I’ve read many a book in which the assholes are praised, this was really refreshing!

Haylah is a wonderful narrator. She’s hot tempered, caring, quick witted and, of course, very funny. She got mean very quickly when she was angry, but she could own up to her mistakes (something refreshing in the YA genre).

The other character I particularly enjoyed was Haylah’s little brother – he was an absolute DELIGHT! Having him in a scene just made it instantly better.

PLOT:

⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
I have no negative things to say about the plot structure, but there also wasn’t anything particularly extraordinary about it. The story didn’t lag, was told clearly and concisely, and didn’t have an unrealistically happy ending. However, it was an eensy bit predictable. Not in a bad way, just in a comfortable, classic YA way.

DIALOGUE

⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Similar the to plot, the dialogue was functional and nicely written. There are some fun banter scenes that would have raised the star rating, but were taken down by lines that no one could have just come up with off the top of their head.

THEME:

⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Throughout the entire book, Haylah is dealing with confidence issues. She has a lot of negative feelings about her own body, being a plus sized teenager. To try and prevent further bullying, she tries to get ahead of the taunts by telling everyone to call her “Pig”. (Her last name is Swinton, and she is anticipating the connection to the word “swine.”) In taking this name, Haylah is trying to turn something that could be used against her into part of her identity. However, it never really sits right with her, and in the end she reclaims her name while starting the process of realizing that she’s gorgeous exactly how she is.

Haylah have any confidence in herself as a performer. She knows she wants to be a stand up comedian, but she has never actually “stood up” in front of a crowd. She keeps referring to performing as something she’ll do in the future, never even once considering she already has the talent it requires. Little by little, she breaks through that barrier – sharing her jokes with Leo to stand up at the pub.

Both of the journeys are simplified to fit within the confines of a YA novel. In real life, there are many more steps to dealing with self hate, but this works well for the story. The theme is clear, uncomplicated, and threads neatly through the story.

PROSE:

⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.
There’s nothing extraordinary about the writing style. Elliott tells the story neatly without any extra pomp or frills. The only critique I have is that some of the internal monologuing is a little bit preachy. As a teenager, I can’t speak for all of us, but I do not think that cohesively when I’m upset or emotional. Yes, I always think I’m in the right (I’m a teenager, I’m the center of the universe), but I don’t write a essay in my brain. That comes later, once I’ve calmed down.

REPRESENTATION:

⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
For diversity, this book has a plus sized protagonist and the love interest is black. This is more diversity than I’ve seen before in this kind of YA book, but I’d rather see more in books coming out in 2020.

REPRISE:

⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
I don’t see any reason that this book wouldn’t be nice to read again, but I also don’t have any particular drive to revisit it.

OTHER THOUGHTS:

Any mention of Harry Potter just makes me cringe right now. However, that dream is still really funny.
Noah is an absolute delight!
Okay, Haylah is ridiculously confident when it comes to the classroom. Multiple times throughout the book she takes a situation that would be slightly embarrassing to some people, and makes the entire class laugh and she looks incredibly cool. This kind of contradicted the thematic arc of the book, and irked me a little bit.
“At least it’s a punchline I wrote.” is a fantastic line.
The way Haylah falls in love with Leo is hilarious, adorable, and SUPER RELATABLE!
Stand up routines don’t really work very well to read. Elliott did an admirable job trying to make it work, but there are still some moments where it doesn’t quite click.
The “Leo-Rocket” line made me snort!
I’m happy that the “leaving secret notes in his locker” didn’t last very long. Anonymity just doesn’t have the same impact.
No socks is……unfortunate.
I’m so glad that Leo wasn’t either the perfect man or a jerk. He’s really nice to Noah when they meet, but then admits to his shitty behavior. I think Elliott handled that conflict really well.
Communist. Heeheehee!
I would KILL my friends if I they surprised me with a performance that I had repeatedly said I wasn’t ready for. Sure, Haylah was mad, but nowhere near as mad as I would be.
Haylah is really so mean to Ruben. Damn.
I was not a fan of Haylah’s friends until the fight. Once they were gone, their absence showed – but in the beginning they annoyed me.
This book ends with the perfect amount of cheesiness. All the relationships get mended, Haylah performs, but she doesn’t win the competition. I loved the ending, except for one thing…
I’m quite sick of the bullies to lovers trope. Enemies to lovers, sign me up, but when one party is just mean to be mean, because “they like you”, augh, I have no patience. Mostly I think it’s because, as a high schooler, I can attest that the people who are mean are just mean, jealous, and bitter and don’t deserve an ounce of your time. However, Haylah does acknowledge this a bit, by not saying yes right away. This redeemed it a little, but ugh, I’m not a fan of this kind of thing.

I thought this book was very cute and very funny. It is a quick read and the characters are enjoyable and relatable. The issues Haylah faces are common ones that girls could face in today's world and the story-line promotes finding ones self-worth.

Thanks to Netgalley and Myrick Marketing & Media, LLC for providing a digital ARC of Pretty Funny For a Girl in exchange for an honest review.

This book was definitely a quick read, and somewhat forgettable. Although, Haylah's inner dialogues and interaction with loved ones were immensely funny; I could not relate to any other characters, which made it hard to care much about the different scenarios. Her family dynamic was the closest one I found interesting, specially any conversation with his too funny for his age little brother. 

I enjoyed how uplifting her thoughts about herself were, as she embraced who she was, no matter who or what. It was totally visibly how she has always dealt with her emotions through comedy, but I did not like the reason behind her involvement in one of the stand-up comedy competition. By the end, she has become more confident in her own skin, specifically at deciding that comedy was her calling but maybe the reasons were not the right ones.

Overall, I liked the concept but it was a book that I most likely going to forget.

“Pretty Funny for a Girl” is a light, entertaining read. The story follows Haylah, an aspiring comedian and high school student who falls hopelessly in love with Leo. The problem with this is that Haylah, whose nickname is "Pig", considers herself to be fat and thinks she doesn't stand a chance with a popular senior like Leo. They bond over writing his comedy set for an upcoming competition and she begins to hope that they might have a romantic relationship. But nothing is ever that simple.

I found Haylah a hilarious character both through her comedy acts and her inner thoughts. She made for a strong central character and her messy life was both realistic and relatable. Her humour was clever and although I didn’t actually laugh out loud while reading, I did thoroughly enjoy myself throughout the novel. Romance isn't really my thing so the high school crushes, daydreaming and pining had me a bit bored. There was a lot of doubt and uncertainty on Haylah’s behalf and having her tell the story from the first-person perspective made it quite slow. Reading about every detail behind her emotions and actions was insightful but made the novel predictable.  At times, Haylah’s obsession with her body and calling herself “fat” got a bit excessive. Although this was a part of her character, it got a bit repetitive and made me a little frustrated and annoyed. Despite this, the characters each had unique personalities and added charm to the story. Also, I really appreciate the positive messages in “Pretty Funny for a Girl”. There were many important issues touched upon including gender stereotypes and racism. Seeing Haylah overcome her fears and sort out her priorities in life was inspiring and thought provoking. I found the ending satisfying because Haylah finds the right guy for her, but more importantly, she finds confidence and sees the value in herself.

I understand what the author was going for here, and I don't think the book totally misses the mark, but it has some issues that were a bit glaring for me. I found some of the fat phobic humour a bit much, and the self deprication began to feel forced. I did like Haylah a lot and thought she was a well drawn and lovely character, but I just wish she'd been more fully realized. She has so much potential outside of being fat, I would've loved to see more of the rest of her! I wouldn't steer people away from this book but it probably wouldn't be on my recommendation list. 

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

A super quick read which was much appreciated, and I laughed a couple times.

I really wanted to like this one, but I definitely had some issues with it.
- Fat phobias. Our main character is kind of pegged as the " funny fat" one. Its a trope I really don't like, at all. Our main character commented on this a bunch of times and it was just annoying.
- I know its kind of particular, but I really can't stand character names that are so distracting. a name like "haylah" you have to spell it out everytime you read it. I kept reading as hayley, and then I would get annoyed and distracted.
- the romance felt very forced and inorganic. 

Thank you for the ARC.

(Thank you Peachtree Publishing for the eArc)

A quick, okay read.

Haylah is a funny, overweight teenager who has a dream: to be a stand-up comedian and do what she likes the most—to get other people to laugh. When a cute guy at school turns out to be a comedian, too, Haylah can’t keep her distance and decides to ghostwrite for him. 
Overall, this was an okay read. The characters are well fleshed-out, and there are positive messages to get from this book. Even though I liked the main character, I didn’t connect with the story itself as much as I would have wanted, which explains my rating.

Thank you to NetGalley, #BookJunkies, @BecElliott, Peachtree Publishing Company and Myrick Marketing & Media, LLC for the advance reader copy of Pretty Funny for a Girl by Rebecca Elliott, in exchange for an honest review. I loved irrepressible, funny Haylah who yearns to be a stand up comic.  In this time of Covid, Haylah, nicknamed Pig, made me laugh with her sardonic wit, laugh out loud jokes and humorous monologues.  But Haylah does not recognize all the good things about herself.  Since she is plus size, she is very insecure about her looks and confidence, but she constantly and valiantly battles her inferiority complex making her one awesome protagonist I rooted for on every single page.  Her love for her brother, Noah, and her Mom is so nice to see in a YA book. She has two best friends who have her back, but her inferiority complex has her so wrong about their motivations and sincerity.  When Haylah deems her mother’s new friend (love interest?) Rueben a no go because he doesn’t wear socks and has a big beard, she jumps in and pushes him out. Haylah learns so much when she begins to slip her own jokes into awesome, popular Leo’s locker and becomes a friend, muse, and maybe something more? Readers will love this book as they see themselves in so many of the characters in this must read, laugh out loud book! Highly recommended.

Turns out Haylah is pretty funny for a girl...

In this novel, we follow Haylah better known as Pig. She's a plus size teen (as if that alone wasn't hard) taking care of her little brother along with her single mom and has a big crush on a kid at school so when he ask her to help him write jokes for a competition, she can't help but agree. 

Now, this plot might sound a bit familiar knowing all the YA books out there, but this book has something that none of the others have: Haylah.

While her self-deprecating humor can be a bit much sometimes, I have rarely connected as much with a protagonist and keep in mind that's she's fourteen and I'm in my mid-twenty. But where so maybe have tried over the years to relate the reality of being different and social anxiety, Rebecca Elliott actually managed to capture it and put it into words for us. What could have been gold mines of second-hand embarassment actually managed to be relatable annecdotes that I think most of us would understand, no matter the age.

The comedy is also amazing in here. I actually shared one of the jokes with my mother (after of course translating it for her) and she actually cried (and maybe peed herself a little bit) because of how much she was laughing. Haylah is an inherently funny character makes the jokes instead of being one. Noah, her little brother, is also a laugh riot and can make any scene he's in so much better. He also asks some very pertinent questions.

Of course, the rest of the characters are also great, proving themselves to be a great ensemble. From her feminist mother to her two amazing best friends passing by the young black man who struggles with being seen for what he really is, Elliott actually managed to create a diverse and interesting menagerie that we could all find among our friends and families. None of them actually manage to fall into clichés, instead always finding ways to keep us on our toes.

All in all, this book is a great way to teach teens (and adults) that it's okay to be who you are and that girls can be funny too. That and has any of us really ever seen a chimpanzee take a bath?

I think this book is middle of the road. It isn't bad but it also isn't the best thing I've ever read. I'm always really weary when reading books about a fat protagonist. Too often they become stories about how the protagonist has lost the weight and now everyone loves them. I am happy to see that this book does not have that happen. But at the same time Haylah talks about being fat every single page. She even has people call her pig. I get that she does it as a way of protecting herself (beat them to the joke) but it still seemed like a lot considering everyone time a kid talked to her they called her pig. In normal life we don't use our friends names/nicknames in every sentence we exchange. Putting that aside the book was a quick read about being a young girl finding her way in London. I liked the thought of making her a feminist because of the ideas instilled by her single mother but I feel like that also got lost a lot. (Her mother won't let her shave even though she's asking to do so because she doesn't love her hairy legs not because of a boy?) I also like at the end she didn't agree to go out with the boy but did make him change the way he interacted with her before allowing him to spend actual time with her. I think there are good messages in this book if you look close enough. I think the message gets lost a bit here and there but you're able to catch it popping up. I read this book in a few hours and I'd recommend it to someone if they needed a quick read and didn't wanna think too hard.

Readers will LOVE Haylah, though they'll be frustrated with some of her decisions at times. But through mistakes come growth. Haylah is a funny fat girl - and those are traits that, separately and together, need to be seen as positives to younger readers more often.

Unfortunately, the writing style was just not for me and I ended up marking this as a did not finish. While it wasn’t for me, I do believe others will enjoy it. I may try to pick it up again in the future.

Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this novel.    I was excited to read this contemporary ya novel about a girl stand up comedian.  The summary and cover did a great job to lure me in but about 30% in,  my interest was done and I had read enough.   The main character Haylah wants to be a stand up comedian.  The author takes a long time to describe and set the scene for the reader that the storyline didn't keep my attention especially when the main character is overweight and that seems to  be a major point of this novel.   I may come back to this one at some point but there just wasn't the draw for this one that thought.

I really did not enjoy this. It was very different from what I was expecting. I was expecting something much lighter than this turned out to be, and, ya know, actually funny. My main issue with the book was Haylah, though. She crossed the line from self deprecating to self hating almost immediately and never really seemed to come back. Her inner dialogue read like a bitter, insecure, middle aged woman, and I just hated being in that headspace. This was not body positive at all, it actually seemed the opposite. And as far as Haylah taking the jokes and turning them around on the people trying to make fun of her, like calling herself Pig? It really didn't work and was just super cringey. Kind of like a Michael Scott level of awkwardness but with no redeeming qualities so it's not funny it's just super uncomfortable. I didn't really feel like I got to know the other characters very well, so it was just me and Haylah and we did not hit it off.

The main character is truly what brings down this book. A wonderful premise and an exciting one at that, but the entire book is filled with her stating that "she is fat." It is off putting and very abrasive. The first page says that she is fat about 3-4 times and it was just miserable to read. The voice and tone were fine, but the main character genuinely was terrible. She wasn't nice, she didn't deserve much of what she got, and it took forever to finish. I wanted to see more of who she was outside of being "fat" as she describes, but I never got that. Some parts were good, but they didn't keep me wanting to read. If it wasn't for an ARC I would have never finished this one, unfortunately.

Quirky, fast read.
Haylah Swinton has always wanted to be a comedian when she grows up, she knows how to make her friends laugh and can turn being the butt of a joke into an identity that she proudly claims. When she has a chance to work with fellow comedian and senior hottie, Leo, she jumps at the chance, even if it costs her her friends.

I like that Haylah was pretty outwardly confident, even if she didn't always feel like it inside. She owned the name Pig and is a pretty likable girl. I could see how having a guy like you when you've never experienced that before can make you act differently. Especially when he's a popular guy and you're having a hard time believing he has any feelings. I didn't like that Haylah did a complete 180 and shut out her friends because they were looking out for her. Also, what she did to her mom was pretty terrible and made me like her less.

The ending was good and Haylah tried to make up for her mistakes and stood up for what she wanted. I didn't so much care for the bit of romance thrown in at the very end, it was a little forced I thought.

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion.

*3.5

First off thank you to NetGalley and Peachtree Publishing for providing me an ARC of this book. I had really high hopes for this one going in since I love comedy especially female comedians. It was a fun read, but wasn't all that I had hoped for.

I think the thing that bothered me the most was the level of self-deprication by the main character. It just felt very repetitive and for no real reason. There were times it felt like the author felt the need to remind us every couple pages that Haylah was fat. It just tried to drive that point home a little too hard.

Overall I loved the concept and found myself invested, but the pacing could have been a tad bit better as it felt slow from time to time. The scenes where comedy was at the forefront were by far my favorite and the wit was really strong.

Thanks to Myrick Marketing & Media, LLC for providing a digital ARC of Pretty Funny For a Girl in exchange for an honest review.

I love flawed characters. I love watching them grow and change into or despite their flaws. But there is a difference between being flawed and being unlikable and if your MC falls into the latter and barely fixes any of her flaws and you expect me to root for her happy ending. 

Haylah is kind of awful to everyone in her life. She's self obsessed and self interested and its brushed over with 'she's fat she's insecure' but in a story that seems like it's trying to be about self acceptance I was also waiting for Haylah to accept the fact that her personality flaws exist and owning them, not just abruptly having a bunch of side characters show up in the last act to tell her 'she's a lot more attractive than she thinks she is'. 

Technically, Haylah does apologize for the some of the awful choices she makes, but it reads as her running out of characters that like her, feeling lonely and literally just saying the words 'I'm sorry' without analyzing what she's sorry about, and then having that character admit that they were also at fault which just made the whole thing feel a lot less like growth and a lot more like Haylah being manipulative.

I appreciate what this book was trying to do. I really do. But I definitely did not appreciate this book.