Review 7 24 Girls in 7 Days

Bradley, Alex. 24 Girls in 7 Days. New York: Dutton, 2005. Print.

Citation: 

Jack Grammer is a senior in High School and is not exactly what you would call smooth with the ladies.  As Prom approaches it is obvious that Jack will never be able to ask out anyone on his own so his best friends Percy and Natalie create an online personal ad for him.  Unexpectedly the ad creates a slew of responses: it appears that a lot of young women would like to go to prom with Jack.  The problem becomes how to choose just one.  Jack  now has seven day to date twenty four girls and pick one for the prom.  As if that was not hard enough jack is falling for the mysterious FancyPants who is not part of the prom contest but seems to know Jack and to be really concerned for him.  Prom is fast approaching and time is running out who will Jack choose and who is really the right one for him? 

Justification for Nomination:

24 Girls in 7 Days deserves a nomination for a Printz award not because of its plot, which is creative but not that new or exciting.  What it deserves a nomination for is how well it author Alex Bradley writes characters.  Jack, the main character, is written as shy and unsure but with wit and humor and a good idea of who he is, or at least who he thinks he is as the moment.  The other main characters are drawn equally well with back stories that really make them real.  Percy and Natalie who are Jack’s best friends have as much going for them as characters as Jack does.  The only characters that lack dimension are the stock girl stereotypes that Jack has to date in his quest for a prom date.  That shallowness and two dimensionality work because the girls are not that important other than to serve as a foil for Jack and his quest.  Each girl does in turn teach Jack something about human nature as well as Jack’s own nature.  Bradley’s gift for dialogue really helps to make his characters authentic and relatable to the YA reader.  I really like the idea of a love story turned on its ear and told from the perspective of a boy.  Jack is sensitive as well as confused and it is his sensitivity that leads him to a truth about himself and his quest for a prom date that give the book a very satisfactory and ultimately realistic ending. The answer to the question “who is FancyPants?” worked on so many levels and really helped to show how much Jack had grown as a person during his quest and shows how well Bradley paid attention to character development.  The scene where we learn who Fancy Pants is is both a heady reveal and a touching and tender moment.    

 In one scene Jack has to ask his best friend if she can teach him how to kiss, what follows is an awkward and all too real exchange that made me uncomfortable for the both of them and immediately reminded me of how I was with my female friends when I was Jack’s age.  The sexual tension between to friends of the opposite sex was so realistically written that I had to keep reading the book to see where it went.  This kept me up well past my bedtime which in my book is the sign of a good book.   While the plot is somewhat typical of a teen love story the characters and their dialogue make 24 Girls in 7 Days a real treat to read and a book at least worthy of a nomination.  Who says that all winners of a prestigious book award have to be about heavy and somber topics?    

     

Genre:

Romance, Love Story.