Book Review: The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl

 

Title: The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl
Author: Melissa Keil
To Be Published: 11th Feburary 2016
Publisher: Stripes Publishing

Many thanks to Stripes Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Alba has just graduated from school alongside her friends. Best friend (and side-kick) Grady notices a youtube video going viral predicting that their small town in Australia is going to be the last place left standing after an impending apocalypse. The town attracts some crazy visitors and suddenly everything spirals out of control! Could Alba leave behind all she knows, including the comforts of her comic book characters or could they survive in reality alongside her? Can Alba make sense of the apparently upcoming doomsday when her head is already jam packed with confusing thoughts about what shape her future should take?

It is SO refreshing to read about a female lead character who has a fabulous sense of humour, is confident in her own skin (no, Alba is not the kind to skimp on the delicious bakery food around her at home just like most normal girls on the planet – yay!) and she also has some serious sass!

‘Sue me for being sappy, but I haven’t kissed that many random guys because I decided I didn’t want to kiss random guys. Kissing is supposed to be no big deal, but really? I just never liked being that smooshed together with any old someone.’

I can’t tell you how happy this book made me. I was drawn to Alba like a moth to a flame and her friends have such individual and well detailed personalities I couldn’t help but compare them to my own group of friends from school. There was some real nostalgia for me, and alike Alba, I found myself sometimes drifting off into my own world of memories – I can’t remember the last time I read a book which reminded me of the anxiety of everything changing and how that felt when I was eighteen and the world suddenly seemed a hell of a lot bigger than I ever remembered it being. The honest writing of how this really makes you feel will stay with me for a long time.

‘What do I want? I want to wrap everyone I love in one teeny bundle, and I want to build a wall around my Valley and keep it the same way it’s been for the last seventeen years, and I want to wake up every morning in a fog of cinnamon and vanilla, and I want to stop everyone from moving until I’m ready for it to move’

Essentially, you need to read this book. It’s funny and quirky (without being too try-hard), thought-provoking and utterly charming. The comic references are awesome, you’ll love it whether you’re into comics or not and the description of the baked goods being served up at Alba’s mums bakery just made me drool.

Rating:

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