Geek Girl : All That Glitters by Holly Smale

"My name is Harriet Manners, and I am still a geek." The fourth book in the award-winning GEEK GIRL series. Harriet Manners has high hopes for the new school year: she's a Sixth Former now, and things are going to be different. But with Nat busy falling in love at college and Toby preoccupied with a Top Secret project, Harriet soon discovers that's not necessarily a good thing...

 I received this book from the publishers for an open and honest review. 

Star Rating

Holly Smale does it again!! I absolutely adore the Geek Girl series and every time I read one I have wonderful flashbacks to my youth. I was the kid who LOVED school; the lessons, the books, the teachers, the friendships. Today, I often find myself reminiscing with friends and wishing that I could go back in time for a day to watch my 15 year old self. Reading the tales of Harriet Manners is the closest I will ever get to reliving my youth (unless someone finally invents time travel) but that is good enough for me. This brilliant series by Holly Smale not only reminds me of my own time spent in school, but of the books I used to read when I was younger - Jacqueline Wilson, The Babysitter's Club, Sweet Valley High (all classics may I add).

Once again, this story is  full of more fascinating facts that will delight and surprise you. It often makes me wonder where Holly Smale gets them all from. I like to think she has a room in her house full of encyclopedias entitled 'random crap'.

'If you had a million snow crystals and compared two of them every second, you'd be there for nearly a hundred thousand years before you found two that matched.'

In this fourth-book, in the award winning series, Harriet Manners finds herself in sixth form, struggling to make new friends and learning the hard way that school life can be brutal. In this installment I feel that Holly Smale has really cemented Harriet's character and allowed her to find her voice. Harriet is witty, sarcastic and unceasingly funny and there were many occasions that I found myself laughing out loud (always a sure fire way to make yourself look insane to innocent bystanders).Holly Smale deals with the theme of friendship in a light-hearted yet meaningful way. The plot line is one that will resound with it's teen readers and I am sure many will admire the way Harriet deals with the challenges that face her. 

'If with every act of kindness, we shine a little brighter and the darkness gets a little lighter. With every type of friendship, space gets a little smaller and we get a little closer.'

Before I sign off, I can't end the post without quoting an extract from Holly Smale for all the book lovers out there. I leave you with this... 

'With my curtains shut and my bedroom door closed, I've devoured words like never before: buried myself in books and submerged myself in stories. I've read during breakfast, lunch and dinner' until the sun's come up and gone down and come up again. And not just fact books. I've fought dragons, attended balls and chased a whale. I've won wars, lost court cases, travelled India, ridden broomsticks and stranded myself on numerous islands. I've died a dozen times. Because here's the thing about a book: when you pick up a story, you put down your own. For a few precious moments, you become somebody else. Their memories become your memories; your thoughts turn into theirs Until, page by page, line by line, you disappear completely.'