Synopsis: Jeane Smith is seventeen and has turned her self-styled dorkiness into an art form, a lifestyle choice and a profitable website and consultancy business. She writes a style column for a Japanese teen magazine and came number seven in The Guardian’s 30 People Under 30 Who Are Changing The World. And yet, in spite of the accolades, hundreds of Internet friendships and a cool boyfriend, she feels inexplicably lonely, a situation made infinitely worse when Michael Lee, the most mass-market, popular and predictably all-rounded boy at school tells Jeane of his suspicion that Jeane’s boyfriend is secretly seeing his girlfriend. Michael and Jeane have NOTHING in common - she is cool and individual; he is the golden boy in an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt. So why can’t she stop talking to him?

Review: Oh this book is frikken cute as. And before I start the review itself, I want to just say that I actually bought the audio version of Adorkable from audible.com, and let me tell you now… the audio version was way better than anything I could have experienced reading the book itself. The English accents are completely endearing and for me made the story even more enjoyable.

Jeane Smith is a complete oddball, but I love her. She is a professional paid blogger and owner of the blog Adorkable, a site that helps empower other self confessed dorks out there. I’d like to personally think I am every ounce as cool and as unique as Jeane Smith…. but let’s get real about it, the only thing I have in common with Jeane Smith is a .com, and that’s about it. Sad panda.

“The Ad♥rkable Manifesto

1. We have nothing to declare but our dorkiness.
2. Jumble sales are our shopping malls.
3. Better to make cookies than be a cookie-cutter.
4. Suffering doesn’t necessarily improve you but it does give you something to blog about.
5. Experiment with Photoshop, hair dye, nail polish and cupcake flavours but never drugs.
6. Don’t follow leaders, be one.
7. Necessity is the mother of customisation.
8. Puppies make everything better.
9. Quiet girls rarely make history.
10. Never shield your oddness, but wear your oddness like a shield.”

And that’s basically Jeane Smith wrapped up in a nutshell.

Michael Lee couldn’t be any more opposite to Jeane Smith if he tried. He hates Jeane Smith. But through a series of events (ie. Jeane’s boyfriend and Michael’s girlfriend end up wanting to be with each other instead of with Jeane and Michael), as well as one big argument… they end up being drawn together.

Their love/hate relationship and banter back and forth was so fantastic. And whilst the storyline itself was all cute and playful I loved the subtle way that Sarra Manning dealves into the deep issues without making it obvious that we’re heading that way. We’re laughing one minute and then and it’s not until you have the benefit of hindsight that you can look back and say “Whoa… that got kinda heavy, how did we end up here?”. I love how she was able to do that.

The storyline itself was beautifully crafted and it just flowed so well. It was a fast entertaining read (side note: do you still call it a read if it’s an audiobook?!) and I felt a little bit sad when it was over. PS. I stayed up until about 1am on a work night JUST to finish listening to this, because I was truly that into it, and I just had to know how it was going to finish off. I was not disappointed. FANTASTIC book… again, I highly recommend the audio book version!

Rating: 4 out of 5