Shannon Hale is a complete hit or miss author for me and this was a miss. Part of my issue with this New Adult novel is marketing it as YA -- I can't imagine many teens having interest in this. I also found the protagonist to be too interested in herself by half.

This protagonist, while being older on the YA spectrum, reads a lot like a MG protagonist. I was not able to garner a lot of information about her character, and the tidbits that I did get felt very petty and underdeveloped. While I was excited about the aspect of jumping between books and stories, I was left unsatisfied by the execution of this and found it hard to enjoy the overall story.

Such a fun book! I love books that encourage and share the love of reading, and with stories that literally suck you in this does just that. Great YA read I would recommend to fellow teachers.

This book was an interesting departure from Hale’s other work. It’s trying to be a lot of things at once—teenage coming of age, fantasy, a little romance. Add to that Josie’s immersions in various genres of books and Hale’s imitation of those styles, and you get a potpourri that is entertaining, albeit occasionally confusing.

I particularly enjoyed the setting, having lived in Montana not too far from where Josie is nannying. I miss my mountains, so it was fun to experience the beauty of western Montana through Josie’s eyes.

Josie’s struggles with being part of a larger world after having been a very big fish in a pretty small pond ring true, as do her anxieties about the boyfriend she left behind.
The sudden twist near the end with an unexpected antagonist was, to be honest, maybe one thing too many in this book.

Possible objectionable material:
There is no swearing in this book. Josie is dishonest with people back home, because she’s ashamed that she hasn’t “made it.” There are some crushes and some kissing, particularly when she finds herself in a romance novel.

Who might like this book:
People who love getting immersed in a book. Fans of coming of age novels.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
This book is also reviewed at https://biblioquacious.blogspot.com/2022/01/a-bundle-of-books-from-one-of-my.html

King of Big Deal by Shannon Hale has an excellent and exciting premise, but the actual novel falls a bit short. I mean, who wouldn't want to read about someone jumping into books and becoming a part of the story? Unfortunately the main character has little to no character development and the book doesn't feel fully fleshed out.

A great book on discovering who you are learning to fail. How many of us have found solace and gotten absorbed in a good book and felt part of the story? Josie Pie is a little like all of us in wanting to avoid reality and escaping in a good story.

I couldn't finish this one, unfortunately. I love Shannon Hale. I really do, and I am glad that she included different genres in "Kind of a Big Deal." But it's no fun to read about someone who peaked in high school and makes frustrating choices. It was a little cheesy, too, and seemed to drag. It wasn't my favorite so I'm going to move on to other things.

Such a nice premace but a big fail on the execution. The main character wasn't relateable in any way so the whole time you never wanted to root for her and even more so less than halfway through you just felt like putting the book down.

KIND OF A BIG DEAL is a charming book about the power of reading and how it can be a great escape. For Josie, she is living out her fantasies and I don't know a book nerd out there who wouldn't love that! With an effortless flow and wit, Hale allows her character to grow and learn with each book she inhabits.

The best thing about this book is that Shannon Hale is not afraid to try new things and new directions. Unfortunately, though, this book just wasn't a winner for me. I couldn't get into the story in the way I hoped, and I found my mind wandering away from the story. I hope to see more from Hale soon in this age range, but hopefully with a touch more spice.

I never thought the day would come when I would give a Shannon Hale book only one star, but that day is today. I was so incredibly disappointed by this book. The writing was not engaging, the characters were caricatures, and the ending fizzled. But even worse, as far as I'm concerned, was that this book included content I would have appreciated being warned about, including but not limited to "bodice-ripping, breast-heaving romance" (and yes, those words are actually used repeatedly in the book), a homosexual father figure/teacher who gives completely inappropriate and life-changing advice to the main character with no consequences or resolution, and a transgender best friend who the reader doesn't know is transgender until about 50% of the way into the book when the difficulties the character experienced transitioning several years ago come up and then become a fairly significant part of the rest of the book. Child abandonment and abuse also come up. And worst of all, there's no resolution or redemption for any of this. I kept reading, waiting for the book to get better, but it never did. I was so relieved when it ended even though the ending was trite and lame and resolved nothing.

My teens and I have loved this author for a long time, ever since falling in love with Princess Academy, the Books of Bayern, and my personal favorite, Book of a Thousand Days. I picked up a copy of this book for them from the library after seeing it was about an older teen because I know they love her writing. I do know that she writes in other genres, including adult, but since this main character was only a year older than my oldest and nothing in the book blurb indicated the content issues I delineated above, I didn't give it a second thought. Fortunately, my teens have been really busy lately so I picked this book up before they did. I have now warned them and they have no desire to read it. I'm sad most of all that I won't be able to trust this author again. To me, that's kind of a big deal.

This was a fun story about the fallout from the dream that many high school students wish would happen to them. This story is funny, and charming.

Josie Pie, still stinging from being “kind of a big deal” in high school and dropping out to become a big star only to be rejected by Broadway, isn’t where she believes she is supposed to be in her life. Now she’s a nanny to a precocious five-year-old in Missoula, Montana, where she knows no one. Her boyfriend is drifting away, her mother is entertaining strange and ridiculous ideas about her own life, and her best friend is creating a new life for herself at college. Plus, Josie perpetuates the lie with unsuspecting friends back home that she’s still in NYC and well on her way to being a headliner.

However, when she wanders into a bookstore, her life changes. To say she “gets into” book after book is an understatement as she plays a major part in each story—as a dystopian heroine, the main character in a YA rom-com, a 17th century wench in a corset, and a superhero in a graphic novel—and finds opportunities to be The Star.

Josie, for all her naïveté about making it on The Great White Way, is funny and lovable, and her affection for her young charge is akin to the bond between aunts and nieces or between sisters. Kind of a Big Deal is just the book that is needed during a time of isolation, quarantine, and uncertainty. Filled with inoffensive, well-placed humor accompanied by bookish fantasy trips into the pages of a variety of genres is a thoroughly enjoyable escape. Hale is a prolific author who, with this YA novel, has given readers a gift: A coming-of-age story laced with wit and comedic situations that is a welcome respite from the many current concerns that plague us today.

This one difficult to enjoy. I appreciate the sentiment of a main character who feels stuck and in a bit of an in-between phase because it's so incredibly relatable. However, the main character in this book was kind of insufferable. The empathy I wanted to feel for her just wasn't there. The story itself felt a bit underdeveloped and while I was intrigued by the concept, the execution left something to be desired. I probably won't be recommending this to other readers.

This was just not my cup of tea I don't think - it had good bones to start with, the blurb was interesting and the cover is cute. But I just didn't love the execution. I just feel like this one was super formulaic and wasn't any different from other books by the author or authors who write in the same vein. I just didn't care what happened to Josie and I really just didn't like her. It's hard to read a book when you can't even form some link for the main heroine.

This was a sweet book by a well regarded author. It was smart and funny and warm and thoughtful. The author is very good at getting inside the head of her characters.

I honestly really wanted to love this book. Shannon Hale is one of the authors that created my love of reading, but this really wasn't the book for me. I love the concept but not the execution. I think it mostly came down to the main character, Josie. I know the she supposed to be kind of unlikable but the issue with unlikable characters is they have to be really interesting in other ways or they will just drag the story down. Josie was just insufferable without anything else to make her interesting. She does improves little by the end but it's not enough to save the book for me. I think this would have worked better as a short story so it wouldn't feel quite so repetitive since all of the books that Josie fell into all felt the same..

This book sounded good when I first requested it, but I’ve since lost interest and will not be reviewing it.

I love Shannon Hale books so I was excited to read this one. It was very good, different than her usual stuff. I really like the character and was interested in her journey.

This was a good contemporary! I have yet to read any of Shannon Hale's fantasy books, but I definitely want to. I think that if you're very new to YA contemporary, you might like this book more than I did, but for me, this was just a little bit generic and predictable.