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Smart Girls Like Me
This is a story about what happens when you are twenty-four years old and it is 1999 and you are quite certain that everyone on the planet has been invited to super-fun New Year's Eve orgies, except you, because you were too busy making plans for the end of the world - courtesy of God or militiamen or your best friend and her ridiculous wedding in the middle of the South Pacific. This is a story about what happens when you think and truly mean things like "I don't care if the world ends, as long as it ends before this stupid wedding."
There is sex, albeit awkward and tentative. There are drugs, however illegal. There is very little rock and roll, but there is, of course, a wedding, and possibly a heroine: Betsy Nilssen, who, daily, finds herself in the sort of Manhattan workplace frequently filled with fashion models, few of whom have spilled milk on their jeans. She has a best friend named Bridget, and all Betsy wants is to escape the coming apocalypse by fleeing with Bridget to New Zealand, where they could kayak through fjords and make out with surfers.
But two things happen: Bridget deserts Betsy - if by that we mean that Bridget accepts her boyfriend's proposal of marriage - and Betsy meets the man of her quite literal dreams, possibly the only person who might assuage the terrifying fact of Bridget's wedding while simultaneously distracting her from the end of the world - er, year.
This is a story about the risks and the rewards of becoming the next and better you, whoever that person might be. It is a story about what happens when you love tremendously and desperately and occasionally unwisely. And it is a story of that one friend: your phone-a-friend with the definition of a tangelo at the ready, the one you call when the world is ending, the one you need, finally, more than any other person on the planet.
There is sex, albeit awkward and tentative. There are drugs, however illegal. There is very little rock and roll, but there is, of course, a wedding, and possibly a heroine: Betsy Nilssen, who, daily, finds herself in the sort of Manhattan workplace frequently filled with fashion models, few of whom have spilled milk on their jeans. She has a best friend named Bridget, and all Betsy wants is to escape the coming apocalypse by fleeing with Bridget to New Zealand, where they could kayak through fjords and make out with surfers.
But two things happen: Bridget deserts Betsy - if by that we mean that Bridget accepts her boyfriend's proposal of marriage - and Betsy meets the man of her quite literal dreams, possibly the only person who might assuage the terrifying fact of Bridget's wedding while simultaneously distracting her from the end of the world - er, year.
This is a story about the risks and the rewards of becoming the next and better you, whoever that person might be. It is a story about what happens when you love tremendously and desperately and occasionally unwisely. And it is a story of that one friend: your phone-a-friend with the definition of a tangelo at the ready, the one you call when the world is ending, the one you need, finally, more than any other person on the planet.
264 pages, Hardcover
First published October 2, 2007
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668 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 85 reviews
November 28, 2007
This book started out really good; the writing is sharp, and the main characters speaks and thinks in a way that smart girls do (in my opinion, anyway). I also like the dynamic between the two friends; it feels very real, and not forced. But, as the book goes on, it drags somewhat.
September 24, 2007
I'm not really sure how anyone wouldn't enjoy this book. It's surprisingly funny, and remarkably smart. The story is touching without being cheesy, and I found myself genuinely caring about what the characters go through. It's the kind of book where you can't wait to finish it, but you don't want it to end because then it'll be over!
I actually turned past the last page hoping there'd be more.
I actually turned past the last page hoping there'd be more.
January 27, 2009
OK...I didn't get through the whole thing. Why? Because it was like reading a 14 year old girl's diary. It seemed super self-indulgent, bordering on narcissistic. And hopefully that was the point, and the main character goes through an awesome transition to really live her Best Life Ever. However, in my quest for living my Best Life Ever, I vowed to not finish books with main characters who repel me.
February 1, 2008
I heard lots of chatter about this one, so I was expecting something better. It might be a tad smarter than your typical chick lit, but quite frankly, I found the main character really annoying. I might have enjoyed it more if I had read it several years ago.
November 4, 2021
Smart Girls Like Me is smart, witty, and poignant. The kind of novel you want to give to your friends to let them know how much their friendship means to you. I can't wait to read the author's next book.
December 9, 2007
not your usual chick lit book. It was funny, sad, and real which makes it easy to relate to the main character.
July 29, 2014
The second half of this book is exponentially better than the first half. I really couldn't put it down after the book hits the year 2000.
December 2, 2022
This book was just ok.
It was a little hard to get into at the beginning, and the writing wasn't great. It was easy to forget that the main character was only 24. Often it seemed like she was much older based on the milestones she felt like she was missing. Oh no, you are 24 and not in your dream job, or married making babies? Most 24 year olds aren't.
The way the characters spoke was also very different from the beginning to the end of the book. At first I thought the constant repeated words was a characteristic that the author chose for Betsy, then I realized all of the characters were doing it, then eventually it stopped.
I had assumed this book was written around the time it took place (1999/2000) but just saw the copyright is 2007. I feel like that's too late for an author to still think the R word is ok. I noticed it several times.
I do appreciate an ambiguous ending, and I would say the writing in the back half of the book was better than the first.
On a personal note, I can not understand why one character kept repeating that rambutan are like coconuts. They just aren't.
It was a little hard to get into at the beginning, and the writing wasn't great. It was easy to forget that the main character was only 24. Often it seemed like she was much older based on the milestones she felt like she was missing. Oh no, you are 24 and not in your dream job, or married making babies? Most 24 year olds aren't.
The way the characters spoke was also very different from the beginning to the end of the book. At first I thought the constant repeated words was a characteristic that the author chose for Betsy, then I realized all of the characters were doing it, then eventually it stopped.
I had assumed this book was written around the time it took place (1999/2000) but just saw the copyright is 2007. I feel like that's too late for an author to still think the R word is ok. I noticed it several times.
I do appreciate an ambiguous ending, and I would say the writing in the back half of the book was better than the first.
On a personal note, I can not understand why one character kept repeating that rambutan are like coconuts. They just aren't.
December 24, 2024
Despite the title of this book, Betsy is not a smart girl. She may have better grammar than the people she works with, she may even be more intelligent than most of them, but she gives little evidence of actually being smart. She spends the bulk of the book being snippy about her best friend's upcoming wedding (to the point that if she were my maid of honor, I would have fired her!) and obsessing about her juvenile relationship with her maybe-boyfriend. At the end of the book she has the predictable revelation about her life and her relationships and the true meaning of being happy, but she spent so much of the book acting like an idiot that I couldn't really bring myself to care.
March 23, 2017
I have never disliked all the characters in a book before! The characters in this book are self-involved, shallow, and void of any interesting qualities. The only saving grace is that the story was mildly funny and I did want to know what the main character was going to do with her life. It was a struggle to continue reading this book. I have to say I could have put it down and been happy to not have finished it!
September 20, 2018
No strong feelings about this. I got a little confused sometimes. Betsy needs to start taking care of herself tho--cook some food and see a therapist. I honestly couldn't decide if she was relatable or an alien.
May 10, 2017
I really enjoyed this book. There was a lot of truth and harsh realities in it. There's jealousy and love and finding your true self.
December 27, 2018
Did not completely understand the book
March 2, 2020
Liked it
Want to read
December 19, 2022""
February 16, 2024
I can only assume that this title was meant to be ironic because there was nothing remotely smart about this girl!
June 30, 2025
Period piece about a spoiled vapid city girl and her obsession with men who don't care about her. Some funny moments and they visit Great Adventure in the beginning.
April 2, 2009
This is one of three books that I chose as an introduction to female fiction. I read her last for some reason I am glad that I did because this book was what saved me from never reading another book by a female auther in her twenties.
In the begining of the book this character is almost sad and pathetic. She she sort of remains so through out the duration of the book but she sort of finds herself and she realizes that that is okay. I like the way the author developes the characters growth into realizing that she will be okay and that her life too will go on. It was unfortunate that the store starts to pick up about 3/4 of the way into the book and all the "good stuff" (everything that I consider to be real about the average human experience). [SPOILER ALERT:] It is my opinion that her trying to talk her friend out of getting married was cliched and abrupt. I know that this realization hits her a bit to late, but some how I think that the auther could have done more a little earlier in the book to foreshadow this occurance and maybe a better build up to her telling her friend she is making a big mistake. In real life, for most people, you don't just wake up and realize wow she is making a mistake. It's just me though. Over all it was a great book and I would read it again and recommend it to others.
In the begining of the book this character is almost sad and pathetic. She she sort of remains so through out the duration of the book but she sort of finds herself and she realizes that that is okay. I like the way the author developes the characters growth into realizing that she will be okay and that her life too will go on. It was unfortunate that the store starts to pick up about 3/4 of the way into the book and all the "good stuff" (everything that I consider to be real about the average human experience). [SPOILER ALERT:] It is my opinion that her trying to talk her friend out of getting married was cliched and abrupt. I know that this realization hits her a bit to late, but some how I think that the auther could have done more a little earlier in the book to foreshadow this occurance and maybe a better build up to her telling her friend she is making a big mistake. In real life, for most people, you don't just wake up and realize wow she is making a mistake. It's just me though. Over all it was a great book and I would read it again and recommend it to others.
November 14, 2015
The Y2K hysteria has yet to become a point of nostalgia for me. It feels antiquated without the jerking essences of "aww, haha, remember when..." Unfortunately, Smart Girls Like Me uses the turn of the millenium as the crux of Betsy's paranoia, preparedness, and pessimism.
That's the one drawback.
The novel, in any other light, is phenomenal. The writing is smart and realistic. Diane Vadino must be a been-there-done-that kind of chick in the relationship department because the way she animates Betsy is dead on. The over-analysis, the wishful thinking, the knowing everything is wrong and forcing it to be right, the counting down the days until making the phone call because he said "we'll talk after three weeks," and spending a New Year's Eve alone is exactly what women do no matter how crazy our otherwise rational minds know it is.
This kind of realism makes us laugh at ourselves and gives us solace in knowing that we are not alone in this mayhem of the difference between boys and girls.
That's the one drawback.
The novel, in any other light, is phenomenal. The writing is smart and realistic. Diane Vadino must be a been-there-done-that kind of chick in the relationship department because the way she animates Betsy is dead on. The over-analysis, the wishful thinking, the knowing everything is wrong and forcing it to be right, the counting down the days until making the phone call because he said "we'll talk after three weeks," and spending a New Year's Eve alone is exactly what women do no matter how crazy our otherwise rational minds know it is.
This kind of realism makes us laugh at ourselves and gives us solace in knowing that we are not alone in this mayhem of the difference between boys and girls.
August 20, 2007
Smart girls won’t read this book. Betsy Nilssen, the protagonist, represents the worst of her self-absorbed generation. Utterly unable to see the world beyond her psychoses (dehydrated meals for the Y2K crisis), failed romances (an office fling that ended when her love interest slept with her boss), and her derelict duties as maid of honor (too numerous to mention), the main character comes across as tepid, one-dimensional and hackneyed. Betsy’s caustic friendship with Bridget, her supposed best friend, makes the reader wish more enemies for her. However vapid the characters and story lines might be, the writing is sharp and witty – the occasional chuckle propels the reader to continue, even if the ending is immaterial.
July 23, 2008
Okay, so I checked this book out at the library approximately two weeks ago. I brought it to work, and have been using it as my lunchtime reading. Normally, I am tortured by my lunchtime book because 30 minutes is never long enough, and I am practically dying to see what will happen next. With this book... well, I sort of could care less. In fact, I am doing something that I NEVER do... returning it to the library even though I never finished it.
2/3 thirds of the way in I am still emotionally unconnected to the main character, and really find her quite frustrating and boring. Plus, the author's style of writing really bothers me. To put it in a nutshell- she uses way too many words and I found myself simply skimming most paragraphs.
2/3 thirds of the way in I am still emotionally unconnected to the main character, and really find her quite frustrating and boring. Plus, the author's style of writing really bothers me. To put it in a nutshell- she uses way too many words and I found myself simply skimming most paragraphs.
August 9, 2011
This could have been a good book if the main character, Betsy, hadn't been so dull and annoying. She didn't have much personality, or even a favorite band, as she demonstrated on her date with the "British" guy. Betsy's occasional flashes of brilliant self-understanding and her excellent grasp of metaphor (using the orange as a shield could've been quite profound if Vardino had develped the idea further) show the reader that Betsy is a smart girl--so why is she such a whiny slacker? Why is she such a codependent friend and girlfriend? I wish the book had been about Betsy's sister and brother-in-law. THEY were a hoot.
Chick lit CAN be awesome and well-written. This is not awesome chick lit.
Chick lit CAN be awesome and well-written. This is not awesome chick lit.
January 12, 2009
Despite the title of this book, Betsy is not a smart girl. She may have better grammar than the people she works with, she may even be more intelligent than most of them, but she gives little evidence of actually being smart. She spends the bulk of the book being snippy about her best friend's upcoming wedding (to the point that if she were my maid of honor, I would have fired her!) and obsessing about her juvenile relationship with her maybe-boyfriend. At the end of the book she has the predictable revelation about her life and her relationships and the true meaning of being happy, but she spent so much of the book acting like an idiot that I couldn't really bring myself to care.
October 22, 2008
The protagonist is a twenty-something struggling with work and her love life. She has a few interesting quirks (thinks the world is going to end on New Years due to the Y2K bug and likes dehydrated meatloaf) that help to define her from the numerous other twenty-somethings in this book genre. Her love life takes a bump near the end of the book, but instead of growing into a stronger character, she feels sorry for herself. I wanted her to take charge of her life instead of moping around until the book's final pages. Her attitude, while charming at first, ultimately made the book unsatisfying.
September 15, 2013
Well, as it turns out, the cover design was pretty indicative of the contents. Initially I thought, "This book is pretty good! The author is smart! But the design is trying to sell it to Nanny Diaries people by putting a rack of clothes on the pink cover!" And while the author puts together more intelligent sentences than the average chick-lit writer, ultimately this story was pretty devoid of substance. It also seemed like the second half was cobbled together, or maybe edited down from something that originally made sense, so as to make us feel the Power of Making the Right Decision.
Eh.
Eh.
February 18, 2010
I would give this 3.5 stars if GoodReads would LET ME!. The beginning two-thirds of the book was as bit hard to get through, but the last 1/3 was rewarding. The author's refusal to use contractions, her long-winded sentences, and her abuse of the phrase "the former and the latter" bugged me. I was able to chug through and, ultimately, I am glad that I did.
The book has a very cliche plot, but it is atypical because it it picks apart everything that women are "supposed to" want (i.e. big, fancy wedding).
The book has a very cliche plot, but it is atypical because it it picks apart everything that women are "supposed to" want (i.e. big, fancy wedding).
September 3, 2011
The title of this book obviously grabs the attention of many. The writing is, especially in the beginning, fresh and exciting. We find ourselves wondering why this protagonist works a job she hates and embrace her new decision to move on. And then she doesn't. She wallows, which is annoying. As this smart girl continues to make ridiculous decisions, the plot becoming a bit muddy and slow and then you want to finish because you think it will get better. It doesn't. Save yourself.
It really is a shame this book didn't pick up. The writing was great.
It really is a shame this book didn't pick up. The writing was great.
March 29, 2008
Erg. This book was OK. The life of a 23-year-old girl is not the simplest nor even the most interesting to commit to paper, in my opinion. I didn't like myself much at that age and I didn't like our heroine, either, very much. There is so much to learn at that age, it just makes me happy to be older and past that morass of self-involvement and craziness. I liked the cultural allusions more than the story, sadly.
March 6, 2008
I'm not even sure why I picked this book up at the library because I was sure I would hate it. It looked and sounded like some kooky chick lit with a twist sorta thing. However, the woman who wrote it was one of the first staff people at McSweeney's, so I just gave it a shot. It was pretty funny, and definitely fun to read. A story about watching her best friend preparing to get married while she is preparing for the millennium Y2K bug to change life as she knows it.
July 29, 2009
I suppose it's a step up to relate to a 24-year-old protagonist in a "grown up" novel as opposed to a teenager in a YA novel. Vadino pretty much nails the twenty-something malaise-slash-vigor that consumes those of us who don't quite have it all figured out and think that other people do. Betsy's sarcasm and sincerity draw you in; her flaws and "quirks" keep you entrenched. A reassuring and fairly introspective view at what it means to "grow up."
Displaying 1 - 30 of 85 reviews