Book Review: The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg

The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg
Pages: 285 (Paperback)
Published: January 1st, 2010
Publisher: Point

I'm a little surprised that I didn't end up liking this book, as most of my GoodReads friends loved it. Well, there's always that one person who ends up feeling the opposite!

The Lonely Hearts Club's protagonist was a 16 yr old by the name of Penny Lane (her parents are major Beatles fans.) After Penny is scorned one time too many, she starts a club that aims to focus on the girl, not the boy. Its main rule is that you can't date, which causes problems for some of the members later on, including Penny.

My main problem was the fact that I didn't like Penny. I couldn't sympathize for her, and the same thing went for her friends. I liked Tracey, but I felt like she was too pushy and out of control (which was never addressed even during the time she got so drunk she couldn't be brought home.) As for Diane, I'm still stuck on the very beginning of her plotline, I feel like she just came into Penny's life again for the sake of the book and I thought she came across as fake. (She seemed flawlessly nice the entire time, and I don't trust flawless.)

Also, there was the issue about how the men were responding to the club. I feel like the problem was always there, but never totally addressed. The PRINCIPAL of all people is trying to suppress the club--there is something actually wrong with that--even though it was used as a throw-away plotline. I was also conflicted over Todd, because I liked his goofiness but he was turned into a villain for the sake of having one. 

I guess the bad stuff weighed more than the good stuff in this case. I wish I had just abandoned it instead of spending eight school days reading it. Oh well.