Smart Boys and Fast Girls by Stephanie Rowe

Smart Boys and Fast Girls  by Stephanie Rowe
Series: The Girlfriend's Guide to Boys, #4
Source: Traded for
Publisher: Smooch YA
Publication Date: September 30, 2005

Meet Natalie Page, the girl all the boys love. As a friend.

When Natalie makes the varsity cross country team, she's certain she's about shed her reputation as a social zero. Hey, the captain of the boys' team has started driving her home from school and she's getting invited to senior parties, right?

There's just one problem.

Failing geometry? How utterly uncool. If she doesn't get her grades up she's off the team...and back to being a high school nothing. Matt, her new tutor, is making the nightmare even worse. He's totally hot, but he thinks sports are idiotic and that Natalie's a flake.

Now Natalie finds herself in even more trouble. To get her parents off her back she's told them she's dating Matt. But he's already got a girlfriend, and being linked with a geek isn't going to help her social life.... or is it? The rumors are about to spin out of control, and Natalie better figure out how to outrun them. And fast.

I actually ended up liking Smart Boys and Fast Girls  a bit more than I expected. At first, I really wasn't sure about it. It didn't start out very good, what with that terrible cliquishness in the beginning, and that the "bomb" so to speak was dropped within the first few pages. But I kept reading in the hope that it would would get better. And I definitely think that it did.

At first, I was convinced that this was going to be an overly simplistic book. And it was fairly simple, but I found that I liked it like that. Everyone had such a straight-forward way of going about things-- there was no beating around the bush here!

Well, accept for the obvious beating, you know. Speaking of which, Natalie and Matt's faux-relationship was so adorable. It was predictable, but it was just the cutest thing that I can think of right off. I liked them as separate characters too, though. Natalie is her own brand of awesome, even if it's clear that she doesn't really think too much about how her decisions impact others. And they do. But Matt-- even if he's too young for me, that boy is so sweet.

I liked that none of their interactions ever felt forced, no matter how far-fetched their plotting was. And that ending was absolutely perfect. It was sappy and cheesy and wonderful-- the best kind of ending.

All in all, Smart Boys and Fast Girls  was a cute and satisfying read. I would definitely recommend it for anyone who's looking for a little fluff!