Not That Kind Of Girl
Author: Siobhan Vivian
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Natalie Sterling has always been a good girl. She gets good grades, prides herself on being a loyal best friend, and is even student council president. Always sensible, Natalie doesn’t understand why some girls waste their time partying and obsessing over boys. Natalie knows what’s important, and she’s sticking to her convictions.

But when her best friend friend turns against her, and student council begins to fall apart, Natalie finds herself leaning on someone unexpected; Connor Hughes. Connor is a football player and everything Natalie promised herself she would avoid throughout high school. But before she knows it, Natalie finds herself sneaking out of her house  in the middle of the night and slipping into the warmth of Connor’s arms.

Good girl. Bad girl. Will Natalie figure out what kind of girl she really is?

When I saw the cover of this book awhile back, I wanted to read this book. With such a scandalous cover, I knew this book would definitely be intriguing.

One of my favorite parts of this book was how true to reality Natalie’s high school was. The descriptive scenes of decorating  the school hallways for the big football game brought me back to senior year and dressing in all blue and gold to cheer on the Panthers. Everything seemed very real to me right down to the stupid pranks and even how annoying Mike Domski was; every school has one, right? The characters and their high school “stereotypes” all feel very real to me. Vivian definitely nailed down high school in NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL.

At first glance, I thought I might relate to Natalie. In high school, I would definitely consider myself a good girl. I got good grades, overachieved and tried to stay under the social radar. However, as I continued to read on, I found Natalie more and more difficult to relate to. At first, I completely respected Natalie for the decisions she made and the type of person she chose to be. But when she began to push her beliefs off onto Spencer, a freshman whom she used to babysit for, I began to question Natalie. By the end of the book, I downright disliked her. She was extremely judgmental and self-righteous; two qualities I didn’t appreciate in this main character. Very stubborn, Natalie didn’t appear to grow or change at all throughout the book.

As far as secondary characters go, while I think they seemed extremely realistic in terms of high school, I didn’t feel like I really cared about any of them. Connor just seemed a bit boring to me; nothing about him really screamed SWOON!  I also didn’t even really mind when Natalie and her best friend Autumn were fighting because I never really felt connected to Autumn or their friendship. And while I understand that the author was trying to make a point by making Natalie and Spencer polar opposites, I think they both went a little too far to the extremes. Neither of them were believable to me.

Even though I didn’t connect with Connor and didn’t really understand why he liked Natalie, I was still rooting for he and Natalie to have a real relationship; call me a romantic. Some of the scenes between the two are H-O-T, and I was definitely entertained waiting to figure out what would become of the two. One thing I appreciated about the scenes between Natalie and Connor were that for just a few seconds, we saw a softer and more vulnerable side of Natalie; one I wish I could have seen more of throughout the pages.

My other issue with this book came towards the end. The book seemed to abruptly end, wrapping up storylines in neat, tidy bows in a matter of pages. One of the things I loved about NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL was the intense conflict that built throughout the book, so when all of a sudden, the book was over and every conflict was resolved, I felt a bit cheated. I would have loved to have seen more details about Natalie and Connor, especially since she was finally able to admit her feelings for him.

While I couldn’t fully connect with this book, I was certainly entertained throughout! This was a pretty quick read and one that definitely kept my attention. Even though I didn’t care for the characters, I would really like to try another one of Siobhan Vivian’s novels because I thought her actual writing was extremely well done.

3/5