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threadpanda's review
4.0
The blurbs describe this as Judy Blume meets Dorothy Parker and that's really the best summary for the book. Told in epistolary style as journal entries written by Jessica Darling, McCafferty gives a realistic and hilarious glimpse into the life of the modern high schooler.
bookgoonie's review
5.0
Fucking cliffhanger! Wasn't sure what I thought of this GDing girl that seemed obsessed with sex. But as the pages turned, the more I wanted to know. And in the end, Fucking cliffhanger!
knightedbooks's review
4.0
I started reading the Jessica Darling series when I was in high school. I found Sloppy Firsts in a bookstore that was going out of business and thought it would be good. It turned out to be amazing. Over the years I read the sequels. Fourth Comings couldn't have been released at a better time. I feel like I've grown up with Jessica. She's now the same age as me and going through a lot of the same stuff I've faced recently. I just hate that I'm already done with the book. I hope there will be more books in the series.
thereadingshelf's review
3.0
See more reviews and other book-related posts at The Reading Shelf.
I finally read another much beloved book in the YA blogging community, which always makes me nervous in case I don’t feel the same way as almost everyone else. And, unfortunately, that was the case with this book.
My biggest issue with this book was the blatant slutshaming and general over-the-top judgment that Jessica Darling slings at every single person except her best friend (who knows, maybe I forgot something she said about the BFF as well!), including herself (she does not always have the highest opinion of herself). She constantly called girls sluts and hos and other colorful ways of saying that they had sex or thought about having sex, which, by the way, she did herself. She hated her parents and her older sister and she hated just about everyone person around her in some way. It was really hard for me to look past her judgmental attitude to see if I liked Jessica much at all.
There were also some references peppered through that didn’t hold the test of time, but that was more funny to me than annoying. The only one that really stuck with me was a very brief, blink-and-you-miss-it mention of the Twin Towers, if I remember correctly; that really threw me and it took a few seconds for me to remember that this book had been published before that happened, even with all the mentions of Y2K (another thing that I didn’t get right away because I wasn’t too aware of nicknames for 2000, considering I probably couldn’t even stay up until midnight to see the turn of the millenium). This wasn’t a problem for me, just something that I kept noticing.
The story itself wasn’t too bad. I was a bit surprised when I started the book and it was in diary format, simply because I didn’t know that ahead of time. I know it sounds like I hated this book with the way I ranted a bit about the frustrating and very-frequent judgments that Jessica is always throwing around, but the story itself was a decent-enough story of a girl’s troubles in high school. I know most people always praise Jessica for being a real and funny person, someone they wish they had known in high school, but I personally would want to stay far away from her in fear that she would find many things wrong with me. This is definitely a case of a book that’s just not for me (yet I’m still continuing in the series – we’ll see how that goes).
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
I finally read another much beloved book in the YA blogging community, which always makes me nervous in case I don’t feel the same way as almost everyone else. And, unfortunately, that was the case with this book.
My biggest issue with this book was the blatant slutshaming and general over-the-top judgment that Jessica Darling slings at every single person except her best friend (who knows, maybe I forgot something she said about the BFF as well!), including herself (she does not always have the highest opinion of herself). She constantly called girls sluts and hos and other colorful ways of saying that they had sex or thought about having sex, which, by the way, she did herself. She hated her parents and her older sister and she hated just about everyone person around her in some way. It was really hard for me to look past her judgmental attitude to see if I liked Jessica much at all.
There were also some references peppered through that didn’t hold the test of time, but that was more funny to me than annoying. The only one that really stuck with me was a very brief, blink-and-you-miss-it mention of the Twin Towers, if I remember correctly; that really threw me and it took a few seconds for me to remember that this book had been published before that happened, even with all the mentions of Y2K (another thing that I didn’t get right away because I wasn’t too aware of nicknames for 2000, considering I probably couldn’t even stay up until midnight to see the turn of the millenium). This wasn’t a problem for me, just something that I kept noticing.
The story itself wasn’t too bad. I was a bit surprised when I started the book and it was in diary format, simply because I didn’t know that ahead of time. I know it sounds like I hated this book with the way I ranted a bit about the frustrating and very-frequent judgments that Jessica is always throwing around, but the story itself was a decent-enough story of a girl’s troubles in high school. I know most people always praise Jessica for being a real and funny person, someone they wish they had known in high school, but I personally would want to stay far away from her in fear that she would find many things wrong with me. This is definitely a case of a book that’s just not for me (yet I’m still continuing in the series – we’ll see how that goes).
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
writerkboe's review
3.0
I found it funny but harsh and almost completely devoid of any finer human feeling. A representation of the most shallow and rough side of teenager. Of course that could just be me.
lapetite's review
5.0
After a gazillion squeals and shrieks, I am very happy with this book. It ended just like I wanted it to. No, it was even better. It was so good I am afraid of reading the next three in fear that it gets shitty. Cause this one was so awesome.
heavensdark's review
4.0
This gets a 4 star rating because even though I am 10 years out of high school and attended a NJ high school 2-6 years after Jessica, I can still relate and still remember feeling the way she did. Reacting the same way, saying and thinking the same things. It's a nice reflection.
arguemore's review
4.0
First three-fourths of the books bored me a bit. I loved her snarky voice and her take on things. I also liked the one-fourth of the book which was the part nearing the end.
gubuchu's review
4.0
I heard about this one before but I didn't have the need to pick it up, really. Only because I did not have it yet. But now I do and I decided to read it. I'm not in high school yet when I write this, I just graduated 8th grade in June, so reading this was really fun. Lots of YA books I've read are in high school, but somehow this was different. I kept on reading and reading and reading and well, it was good. I never imagined myself to read something like chick-lit before and get addicted as much as I did with Sloppy Firsts, I like writers like Sylvia Plath a lot now. So this was really fun to read. Sometimes Jessica felt so real that I felt like I was a stalker who got her diary and started reading in the middle of the night, saying things out loud to it. Also, this book is /old/ And I'm only saying this because I was born in 1998 and this like, 2000 and stuff. So it's old for me. It's pretty interesting to see the differences between then and now. So off to the next ones.