Girls In White Dresses by Jennifer Close

Don’t you hate it when you explain the plot to a book you’re reading and people look at you like you’re illiterate and brainless? Yeah, me too!

People don’t only judge a book by its cover; they also judge it by its summary. After sharing the plot to Jennifer Close’s Girls in White Dresses, a few of my friends gave me a puzzled look as to say: Why are you wasting your time reading another predicable young adult romance novel? I don’t believe in reading a book to impress people on the bus. I don’t choose my books based on what I want people to think when they see it on my coffee table. This book wasn’t written by Freud, Bukowski or Dickens. It wasn’t intellectually challenging nor is it a classic. However, the time spent reading those 300 pages was so satisfying I'm glad I picked it up because it allowed me to turn my brain off for a second and take advantage of my free time.

This book pleasantly surprised me. I realised after only 2 chapters that it was much more than your typical young adult book. It was witty, charming, funny and extremely refreshing. It got me thinking about how much appreciation I have for authors like Close. Her characters were extremely relatable and wonderfully portrayed. The resemblance between their adventures and those of every 20-something adult made it so easy to picture one of these girls being your older sister’s best friend or a girl you met in college. These girls are real. They have flaws, they’re ordinary people. Contrary to the judments made by my peers, these girls are so far from being vain and shallow. They have opinions, they’re charming, and they’re smart. They get dumped, they get fired, they cry, they date, they drink (a lot), they fight and they question themselves. That’s what made reading this book so pleasant for me. It was really comforting to be reminded that not everybody has their sh*t together once they graduate.  

Although there are mixed reviews about this book, it was a perfect release from real life. It’s quite different from the books I tend to read.  It made me look forward to my own post-college adventures. Somehow the future doesn’t seem so scary. Overall, it’s comforting to know that when the time comes, I will eventually get over student debt, self-doubt and years of not having any idea what I’m doing with my life. I guess that’s all I could ask for from such a short and sweet novel.

I definitely recommend if you're not in the mood to do any deep-thinking. My overall opinion: It's a relatable chick-lit with interesting characters living realistic, every-day problems. I think that my appreciation is much less for the actual content of the book but for the reflexion that it brought and the relaxation that came from getting back to reading for pleasure vs. schoolwork.

Nonetheless, my thoughts written above remain the same. Read because you enjoy it, not because it looks good to others!