Nocturnal Book Reviews

How can a book make you sad and feel so wonderful at the same time?

First of all, disregard the synopsis. It gives you a wrong impression of what to expect. Penelope is funny, sure, but it's also perversely non-conformist. I've looked at other people's ratings on Goodreads, and you're either love it or hate it, because people don't get it in the same way they don't get Penelope herself in the book.

Penelope is a freshman at Harvard and she is considered nerdy and weird, this one quiet, agreeable and entirely forgettable girl. You know why? She is an odd duck in love with Hercule Poirot and has a very subtle sense of humour that nobody seems to get. Nobody seems to hear what she's saying to them either, not even her mother.

Everyone around her is entirely self-absorbed and full of crap. They talk about their careers, being edgy and modern, they are empty over-achievers and unfortunately Penelope can't make sense of the life happening around her. She tries to go with the flow and gravitates towards this group and the other, but nothing helps her to feel as someone who belongs. The sense of loneliness in the sea of people and pointlessness of it all is incredible.

Then she meets this fascinating European rich boy, Gustav, mad as a hatter and with a peculiar sense of humour. She has it in her head that if only they had some sort of relationship she can go on this great adventure, because she honestly doesn't have any certainty or goals in her life unlike her fellow freshmen.

Gustav... I can't even get angry with him, because he is rich, spoiled and utterly scatterbrained. He is very charming when he is with Penelope and forgets her when she is out of his line of sight. Crazy, flitting and delightfully bizarre. However, the relationship or shall I say non-relationship/make out sessions with him force Penelope little by little out of her shell, and by the end of the book the whole situation and how she deals with it gives her personality better definition.

I wish Rebecca Harrington wrote more books because I'm dying to know what will become of Penelope, and I just dearly loved the author's style of writing, subtle, ironic, out of the box and melancholy.

Very much recommended.