Blog Tour/Review/Giveaway: Pretty in Punxsutawney by Laurie Boyle Crompton
SYNOPSIS:
A Groundhog Day meets Pretty in Pink mashup from author Laurie Boyle Crompton, Pretty in Punxsutawney tells the tale of a girl willing to look beneath the surface to see people for who they really are.
Andie is the type of girl who always comes up with the perfect thing to say…after it’s too late to say it. She’s addicted to romance movies—okay, all movies—but has yet to experience her first kiss. After a move to Punxsutawney, PA, for her senior year, she gets caught in an endless loop of her first day at her new school, reliving those 24 hours again and again.
Convinced the curse will be broken when she meets her true love, Andie embarks on a mission: infiltrating the various cliques to find the one boy who can break the spell. What she discovers along the way is that people who seem completely different can often share the very same hopes, dreams, and hang-ups. And that even a day that has been lived over and over can be filled with unexpected connections and plenty of happy endings.
REVIEW:
This book was a quick, light, sweet read for my 80s reference loving heart. It was even more endearing since I grew up about 40 minutes away from Punxsutawney. The more I reflect on the story, the more I like it. It had all the classic cringe, giggle, and swoony moments, giving me a lot of Kasie West vibes.
I absolutely love how horridly cringe-worthy Andie’s first day of school is and interactions with Colton in general are. It was delightfully awful. But as the days start to flow one into the other…the same day repeating of course, Andie finally has a come to Jesus moment. To which I cheered out loud when she finally realized that maybe the one you pine for isn’t the one for you.
But the story is about so much more than the romance, its also about navigating high school. The endless cliques and everyone trying to fit into their persona while being smothered by stereotype assumptions. Laurie flawlessly captures the struggles of youth identity while simultaneously showing that we are all alike in so many ways we don’t even consider. I think this will resonate with teen readers, but also show that just because you look one way doesn’t define you.
Along the way there were some bumps. Like it took Andie way to long to see Colton’s true colors! And while this obsession did show her a lot about other cliques, by page 100, I was over it. After she sees the light, time still is stagnant and it gets a little hopeless as she realizes she can’t undo all the damage already caused. But the ending was all the swoon, and for the record, Duckie should have totally got the girl in Pretty in Pink.
LINKS:
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Laurie Boyle Crompton is the YA author of the upcoming PRETTY IN PUNXSUTAWNEY (Blink/HarperCollins 2019) as well as ADRENALINE CRUSH (Macmillan/2014, Square Fish/2016), BLAZE (or Love in the Time of Supervillains), THE REAL PROM QUEENS OF WESTFIELD HIGH and LOVE AND VANDALISM (Sourcebooks/2013, 2014, 2017). Growing up in ‘Pennsyltucky’ in the 1980s, Laurie couldn’t wait to escape rural life. After saving up her tips from waitressing at a local greasy spoon at 18 she packed up her acid wash jeans and moved to NY. Where everyone else had stopped wearing acid wash.
She graduated first in her class from St. John’s University with a BA in English and Journalism. Since then she’s written for national magazines like ALLURE, survived a teaching stint at an all-boy high school, and appeared on Good Day New York several times as a Toy Expert. And yes, ‘toy expert’ is an actual profession. Really.
She has lived in places like Orlando, Florida where she and her husband spent all of their spare time and money visiting theme parks before moving to the Cotswolds in England for six months, which was every bit as cool as that sounds. The Cromptons are now back in New York where their two children resent never going to Disney.
Laurie occasionally enjoys hanging out in fields of blooming flowers and also referring to herself in the third person.
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