Bree is the opposite of what is defined as “popular” at her school. While most of her year are partying, Bree prefers to write. As her pile of rejection letters for the book she has written grows, Bree is told she needs to live a life worth writing about. She sets up a blog and begins to write The Manifesto on How to be Interesting, but she soon finds out that being popular is not all that it seems…
The Manifesto on How to be Interesting has some strong messages, and emphasises that it is important to be yourself and not feel pressured to change the way you are just to fit in. Bree learns about this the hard way, and the book puts across these messages well to the reader. I couldn’t see the link between being interesting and being popular, which seemed to be Bree’s goal. For example, Rule one was “one must be attractive”, which I don’t really agree with.
While following the rules she has written in her manifesto, Bree does some quite self centred things, which made me dislike her character at times, but she learnt that some seemingly “perfect” people are just like everyone else.
Some of the characters in the book were all a bit stereotypical; they all seemed like they were in the background. Her best friend, Holdo, seemed like he was going to develop into a key character, but he ended up fading into the background. However, I always wanted to read on to see what the consequences of her actions would be.
On the whole, this book has some powerful messages and witty humour, so I definitely recommend that you read it.
Fiction for Teens 