I could see some of myself in Plum; lost in the ocean of school and anchoring myself in books. And wanting any chance to be part of any relationship. This possibly would have been better during my teenage years.
Plum (Patience) and Ginny lost their father a deade ago but everyone is still dealing with his virtual ghost is present, including where they haven't really dealt with his study; and things are complicated, their mother is struggling, Ginny is trying to live up to the predictions of genius that her father made for her when she was very small and Plum finds some work and possibly a relationship with Tate Kurokawa (who honestly is not being done any favours by his teachers) with whom she doesn't seem to have anything in common but it turns out she does.
It was a nice read and I almost wish I could go back and give it to past me. Not my usual read but I'm glad I read it. ( )

Delightful sister book. ( )

I love all the stuff the sisters in this book love -- old movies, Jane Austen, pretending to be characters from old movies and Jane Austen. I should have loved this book, but it didn't have enough of a plot for me. The writing was lovely, but meandering. The stakes felt pretty low until almost the very end. It was enjoyable but not especially memorable other than Tate calling Plum Peach, which I thought was super cute.

Overall, it's a sweet, tame romance and a sort of update of [b:Sense and Sensibility|14935|Sense and Sensibility|Jane Austen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1397245675l/14935._SY75_.jpg|2809709] in the sense that it's mainly about sisters who are very different but best friends living in genteel poverty. ( )

I could see some readers finding this mom and her two daughters overly quirky, but I was in exactly the right mood for the whimsy of their old-timey dilapidated home and their pop culture references almost exclusively devoted to literature and I don’t know why the sisters were obsessed with styling their hair in a braid but that was just one of the many little details that made this enjoyable and memorable.

I also loved that this family is by no means perfect, financially they’re barely keeping their heads above water, the mom is frazzled much of the time, and when they aren’t irritating each other to no end, sisters Plum and Ginny ultimately have each other’s backs. Ordinary Girls may not always be the most realistic fiction yet the humor, the awkwardness, and the serious bits were plenty relatable..

It’s been awhile since I fell for a romance as completely as I did for Plum’s. I loved the slow burn of it all, the dancing around their attraction for so much of the story and the thinly veiled excuses to spend time together. Also their relationship gave Plum the opportunity to discuss writing and reading comprehension which if you love books you’ll likely appreciate.

This wasn’t the Sense and Sensibility retelling I expected going into this, there weren’t many parallels between the two stories so if you came to this looking for a modernized version of that classic this isn’t really that, but that’s more than okay, Ordinary Girls very much does it’s own original thing and it proved to be just the refuge I needed from an otherwise not so great week. ( )