ARC Review: Going Vintage by Lindsey Leavitt

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:
Release Date: March 26, 2013
Publisher: Bloomsbury
320 Pages

When Mallory’s boyfriend, Jeremy, cheats on her with an online girlfriend, Mallory decides the best way to de-Jeremy her life is to de-modernize things too. Inspired by a list of goals her grandmother made in1962, Mallory swears off technology and returns to a simpler time (when boyfriends couldn’t cheat with computer avatars). The List:
1. Run for pep club secretary
2. Host a fancy dinner party/soiree
3. Sew a dress for Homecoming
4. Find a steady
5. Do something dangerous
But simple proves to be crazy-complicated, and the details of the past begin to change Mallory’s present. Add in a too-busy grandmother, a sassy sister, and the cute pep-club president–who just happens to be her ex’s cousin–and soon Mallory begins to wonder if going vintage is going too far.

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Review:

I, like I’m sure many other people out there, have often thought about how it would be to live 50 or 60 years in the past. You see those movies and TV show showing a simpler, happier times where families had sit down dinners together every night and technology wasn’t in every part of our lives. Everything was…pleasant.

So when Mallory discovers that her boyfriend has been emotionally cheating on her with a corset-wearing icon on FriendSpace, she swears off technology. No cell phone, no computer, no internet…nothing that wasn’t around in the early 60s. This includes clothing as well.

I loved the idea of this book. I could see Mallory’s logic. How, in her mind, technology was where everything went to hell. Using her grandmother’s teen years as a guideline, Mallory dives in with a list of goals she wants to complete: sew a homecoming dress, join pep squad, etc. And I loved the setting of the book: Orange, CA. Being from Orange County and having been to Orange, it was very easy to picture the life there.

There was a love/hate relationship that I had with Mallory. There was a line in the book that I feel sums her up in one sentence: My only stability is mobility. The girl is constantly striving for what’s next. I loved that she refused to be a victim and went out wanting to make changes to her life. I hated how, even though she was the older sister, she was extremely juvenile in her thinking. And she whined…a lot. Anytime something didn’t go her way – whine. Anytime she got into a position she didn’t want to be in, despite putting herself there – whine. She even threw a fit when her little sister emptied her room of all electronics. Why are you throwing a fit about being cut off from the world when this is what you wanted?

Then there was her family. I was fine with the sister, even the dad. It was the mother and the grandmother that I had problems with. The Grandmother story line felt like it came out of nowhere and I don’t know what it added to the actual plot of the story. It seemed like the author wanted to throw in one more dramatic situation and it just ended up playing out like a cheesy soap. And the mother, I just found down right horrible. At first, I thought she was just a mom trying to live vicariously through her daughters, but then you find out the reasoning for her actions and turns out she was just selling out her daughters for money (pretty much).

Finally, there’s the love interests. First, we have Jeremy – the internet cheater. I believe Mallory had it right when she called him a tool. I really couldn’t see why she wanted to be with him in the first place. All he ever wanted to do was make-out. And apparently they had no communication …at all. Then, we have charming Oliver.

“We’re talking earning ten charm O.W.L.’s at Hogwarts.”.

Yup, sums up Oliver. I adored this character. He’s the reason for the higher rating. One of the best things about this book was Oliver and Mallory’s relationship. It wasn’t insta love. You could actually see the building of their relationship – late night phone calls instead of texting. It was sweet and he was adorable and he made me smile every time he arrived.

All in all, despite how it had that tied-together-with-a-bow ending, I found it to be a cute, lightweight read.

JENN

 Thanks you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.