Girl From Mars by Julie Cohen

PLEASE NOTE MOST AMAZING COVER EVER

Okay, I made myself wait a few days to post this review so I could get over my squeeing and maybe write something that approaches objectivity. This was a mostly successful endeavor. Anyway, blue-haired socially awkward geek girl, comic books, romance, Star Trek? In the same book? It's like it was written just for me. And really, I must stress that the cover is one of the coolest covers I've ever seen. The only thing that could make it better is tentacles.

I'm grabbing the blurb from Amazon because I am feeling too lazy to sum this up myself. It's not wholly accurate but it's good enough.

"I, Philomena Desdemona Brown, do solemnly swear to forsake all romantic relationships . . ." It's not like the vow, made by Fil and her three nerdy male best friends, seemed much of a big deal at the time. Frankly, Fil wouldn't know romance if it hit her in the face, and with her real love being her artist job at Girl from Mars, the comic whose heroine has never had a love interest, she doesn't exactly mind being relationship-free anyway. Until her world is rocked to its core when one of her long-standing quartet and Girl from Mars herself both unexpectedly fall in love. Is it time to give in to temptation and finally fall in love?

I may be a bit biased because it was basically like reading about myself, except I'm not white, English, or an artist. And the blue hair, not since I was twenty. But the socially inept geeky girl bit? ABSOLUTELY. 

The tone of the whole story is mostly wistful, because Fil doesn't want to be alone but she is fighting her attraction to her nemesis (she didn't know he was her nemesis until way after they met). The writing style is really simple and lovely, no flowery nonsense. And the dialogue is great.

I would have liked to see more growth from Fil as a character because she was definitely lacking in the self-awareness department and had a bad case of pretend-it-doesn't-exist-itis, but she did eventually grow up/out a bit. Also, even though Dan (our nemesis/love interest) sounds awesomely hot and nice, he was a bit flat. A lot of the Fil/Dan interaction took place off-page and it left me a little doubtful of the romance. But maybe that's because everything is from Fil's POV and she doesn't really get it either. I don't care, I still love this book.

Final Reckoning

Read this: Yes, you should. As a matter of fact, I'm going to take my own advice and read it again tonight.

Buy It . Borrow It . Skip It

Girl From Mars by Julie Cohen
Series: n/a
P.O.V.: First person, past; single narrator
Language: I am pretty sure it was clean but honestly, my memory can't be trusted
Sexxxoring: Maybe two or three scenes with super vague naked business