A review by meghan111
Cupcake by Rachel Cohn

2.0

The thick red cupcake letter frosting on the cover slightly grossed me out. Cyd has just never grown on me. I admire Rachel Cohn's ability to channel the thought processes she goes through while making the decisions not to go to college and whether or not to chase after her on-again/off-again maybe-true-love Shrimp, and her changing, more mature dynamic with her mom and dad and half-sister, but I think what rubs me the wrong way is actually lightly touched on in this, the third in the series: Cyd has lots of money, but never seems to consider it. She thinks of herself as cool/punk/rebel/coffee shop girl, but the books feel incomplete to me because she doesn't face any real consequences or struggle in her attempt to define herself. So when she seems to be handed opportunities to go to school, or work at a cool cupcake business, it rings bells of entitlement and inauthenticity. And, while this is addressed in the book when she gets the smack-down from a girl who works at a manicure shop, after Cyd admits she works only for spending money because her parents pay the bills, it never really goes anywhere.