Penelope

I loved Penelope.  I shouldn't have even picked it up really.  Its cover is a photo of the back of a (real life) girl who is surrounded by cartoon animals.  Maybe I'm the weird one here but aren't your least favourite bits of old films when the worlds of cartoons and real life mix?  (Mary Poppins is, of course, the exception to this rule but even that section drags on a bit)  The second thing that meant I shouldn't have picked up this book is its name - Penelope.  Apologies to any Penelopes out there but I've never really liked the name, maybe I watched too much Wacky Races as a kid and didn't warm to Penelope Pitstop.

For whatever reason though I picked up the book and I am so I glad that I did.  The novel, written by Rebecca Harrington, is about Penelope O'Shaughnessy who is starting her freshman year at Harvard and is really rather awkward.  She finds it hard to make friends and to understand the meanings behind things, sometimes she acts like a bit of an idiot and is occasionally totally clueless but I still loved her anyway.  She has a unique way of looking at the world, everything is pretty much black and white for her and that's what makes Penelope's voice such a funny one.

As the book is set at Harvard the main focuses are friendship, romance and academia and yes, there are some references to typically Harvard things so if you get irked by things like that, this book probably isn't for you.  However if you enjoyed Rory's college years of the Gilmore Girls (I know it was Yale then and not Harvard but it's still Ivy League) then you'll understand the setting a little better.

The book is fairly dialogue heavy, just skimming through it now I can see a lot of speech marks, and it reminded me of a 30s or 40s book.  As I was reading it I thought that the characters' way of speaking, and the characters themselves, wouldn't have been out of place in an Evelyn Waugh or Nancy Mitford novel.  The author's note at the end of the book mentioned that Harrington had been inspired by, amongst other things, Waugh's Decline and Fall and I felt like a right genius after I read that which was nice as in English lessons at school when other people used to say 'Oh this novel actually reminded me of so and so' and everyone around them would nod in agreement I felt like a right fraud because I hadn't seen that influence.  So, if you like that sparky, flowery way of talking that they used in the 20s-40s, Penelope is the perfect novel for you, it just transplants that way of speaking into a modern setting.

This book was so good that, although I didn't want to finish the book, I was looking forward to the ending when I would then be able to Google Rebecca Harrington to my heart's content.  You know when you read someone's writing and you wish that you were mates with them, that rather than just reading their tweets you could actually read the texts that they sent you, because you're mates?  That's how I felt about Rebecca Harrington.  She has this way of writing that I love and I just can't wait for her to release another book.

After I finished the book I did Google away and also did something I normally do, read the book reviews on UK and US Amazon (only if I haven't already seen them).  Honestly, I expected enthusiastic praise, other people had to love this book as much as I did, right?  Apparently not, it received the highest number of one star reviews I've seen for a long time.  From what I can work out, people don't seem to get the humour and the style of writing, they can't stand the fact that Harrington doesn't use contractions (ie she writes 'can not' instead of can't) and don't understand that the ficticious characters at the ficticious Harvard don't have to speak the way that the real people at the real Harvard do.  I only mention the one star reviews because I would hate for someone to have seen them and been put off the book.  Penelope is so ridiculously good that actually, I don't mind the name Penelope all that much now.  In fact, I think I might, maybe, slightly like it.

Buy Penelope at Waterstones