Where did you hang out when you were a teen? Where did you work? Did you work and hang out in the same place, filled with a food court, clothing stores, and specialty gag gift shops? I sure did. My go-to place was Cottonwood Mall.
Reading The Mall by Megan McCafferty was like reliving my teen years although I did not work at our local mall. Cassie would walk past the food court and have the senior aerobics classes performing and I could see it all happening at my mall. The only place that Cassie missed was Hot Dog On A Stick with the girls who wore that crazy red, yellow, white, and blue upside-down large popcorn containers on their heads (Well, at least that is what they looked like to me,) all the while making that fresh lemonade with their super-strong arms which I knew I could never do, not only because of the hats, but my arms were like rubber bands — thin, tan and strung back too quick...
This delightful YA book also contained a mystery revolving around those beloved and ugly/cute dolls The Cabbage Patch Kids. It was surprising how much I enjoyed this book, and yet, was annoyed at the teen angst that comes when you deal with relationships. Boys, like Cassie's boyfriend Troy don't deserve who they get and yet, it still surprised me that douchey boy/girlfriends came out of the woodwork at the mall. Yeah, like it really shouldn't have though, right? Cassie's enemy and best friend, no, you can't call her a frenemy it wasn't like that, well maybe it was, was the highlight to me in this whole book. Oh, and that one guy at Sam Goody's Music.
When Cassie arrives at the mall the night before she leaves for college things are tied into a pretty bow of perfection again and this quote that came a little bit earlier in the book reminded me, (and Cassie,) what all us teens understood,
'...if everything I really needed to know — about family and friendship and love and loyalty and betrayal and sisterhood, "you know, all the most important shit in life" as Helen had put it — I had already learned that summer at the mall.'
Cassie Worthy ~ THE MALL
Ms. McCafferty does a great job of developing her characters, pulling out their personalities and guiding them through the growth that all teen angst books develop.
I think this book is a 3.75 for me only because I am not sure I would read it again. It makes for a good light-hearted read for the summer.
Thank you, Netgalley, St. Martin's Press and author, Megan McCafferty for allowing me to read this book in lieu of my honest review.
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