Mean Girls

A Novel

By: Micol Ostow

Narrated by: Susan-Kate Heaney

Length: 5 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's Summary

A deluxe retelling of the cult classic film packed with tons of original bonus content. It gave us phrases like "That's so fetch" and "You can't sit with us!" It made October 3 a national holiday, and inspired teen girls everywhere to wear pink on Wednesdays. You know the story - or do you?

Cady Heron grew up homeschooled in Africa with scientist parents as her teachers, monkeys as her classmates, and the African plains as her playground. But when her family moves to the suburbs of Illinois, she finds herself a stranger in a strange land: high school.

With no prior research to guide her, Cady's forced to figure out North Shore High all on her own. Suddenly, she finds herself sucked into Girl World as a new member of the social elite dubbed "The Plastics". Cady discovers that unlike the wild, Girl World doesn't have any rules - especially when you maybe, possibly, okay, definitely, have a giant crush on their ruthless leader's ex-boyfriend. Turns out, life in high school might be even more brutal than a showdown on the Savannah.

©2017 Paramount Pictures (P)2017 Scholastic, Inc.

Competent novelization

I was neither impressed nor disappointed with Mean Girls: A Novel.

The audiobook very accurately follows the movie right down to the dialog, and it fills in some of the gaps in storytelling (for example, it explains why Regina stuck with the nutrition bars so long despite gaining weight).

Unfortunately, though, the additions are few and add little to the story, much like as if deleted scenes were added back into a movie. They don't significantly add to the story.

The humor of the movie does not directly translate into the written word, and the author's own humorous contributions are hit and miss.

Also, the novelization is written from the first person, but it shifts perspective very frequently. It's hard to keep up with who "I" is, especially in an audiobook. It doesn't help that the Plastics feel plastic even when we are seeing the world from their POV. This would have worked out much better written from a limited third person perspective.

The narrator gets Cady's voice right, but some other voices feel over-the-top. Not great, but not bad.

Overall, if you are a huge fan of the movie and just want to hear the story while walking or driving to work or doing exercise, this audiobook might satisfy you, but not much more than that.

A nice preview to the movie, which I haven't seen

Not bad. The author's pretty good. Hope she writes more novels based off movies or TV shows. Narration isn't so bad, but, would've been better with a full voice cast.

D.N.F., but I won't apologize for this one.

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

The following will answer the question. I promise... I'm a late-twenties man who was in high school when Mean Girls, written by TINA FEY and others, was in theaters. I LOVED that movie. LOVED IT! The fact that I can listen to an hour of this book and (because I love the film so much) can quote the book without having listened to it yet... That's just wrong and, to me, theft. I mean, I can't say it's word for word, but it's so close that I knew the dialogue before they even said it.

So, to answer the above question: Anyone who has not seen the movie (I suggest you see the movie and skip the book, but do whatever you want. And, I promise, I'm a book lover! I LOVE books. But, this is just recycled ideas that came WAY too quickly). OR, I suggest you read/listen to the book, but go and check out the BRILLIANCE of Tina Fey by seeing the movie this was based off of.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

DNF stands for Did Not Finish. I HATE that I'm writing a review for a book I did not finish. However, it's important that I warn people against the purchase if they've seen the movie (first one only! First one only!!). So, I can't answer the question unless the ending is exactly like the film, since I decided not to finish it. So, I'll leave it at that.

Did Susan-Kate Heaney do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

Yes, she was fine. I'd say her male characters were lacking, but she was okay from what I listened to. She is no Emma Galvin or Julian Whelan, but not the worst narrator by far.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Mean Girls?

Scrap the book altogether. Come up with a NEW IDEA Micol Ostow!

Any additional comments?

I apologize to anyone who gets mad at this review. I just want those who have seen the movie to know not to waste your time. If you haven't seen the movie, read it! I'm sure the book will make you laugh your butt off, but only because of its source material. (I'm completely aware that it said that it was based off Fey's screenplay. I had pre-ordered it and was going to cancel my pre-order, but I was too late to do so. Because of this, I decided to give it a chance and it wasn't worth it).