Author: Megan McCafferty
Publication Date: 28 July 2020
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Page Count: 320
Reading Method: Physical ARC
Synopsis:
The year is 1991. Scrunchies, mixtapes and 90210 are, like, totally fresh. Cassie Worthy is psyched to spend the summer after graduation working at the Parkway Center Mall. In six weeks, she and her boyfriend head off to college in NYC to fulfill The Plan: higher education and happily ever after.
But you know what they say about the best laid plans…
Set entirely in a classic “monument to consumerism,” the novel follows Cassie as she finds friendship, love, and ultimately herself, in the most unexpected of places. Megan McCafferty, beloved New York Times bestselling author of the Jessica Darling series, takes readers on an epic trip back in time to The Mall.
Review:
This was quite the throwback! Now it’s true, I didn’t grace the world with my presence until 1992, but the majority of the references landed. I think that was probably the most enjoyable part of this story – the classic references to cassettes, scrunchies, and totally cool music like 10,000 Maniacs and R.E.M.
The entire story takes place in the mall, which also delivers us quite the eclectic cast of characters. There were so many fascinating side characters and it left me wanting just a little bit more back story or information about them. They were each a little weird in their own ways; I wanted to explore that weird.
Our MC, Cassie, is fresh off a breakup and out of a job. When she finds works at a clothing boutique, everything changes. Drea and Cassie embark on a treasure hunt involving cabbage patch kids? Yep, you read that correctly. Haha. Their quests leads them to all kinds of wacky shenanigans.
I would have liked to see more characters development for Cassie and Drea. We follow these two characters throughout the story, but I feel like I wanted to know more. Drea has dreams and it seemed like her potential wasn’t really developed, but more of an afterthought to make her seem more fleshed out than she actually was. I also would have liked to have known more about Cassie’s family life. She calls her parents by their first names sometimes, which makes it a bit confusing at first to grasp who she is talking about, but also.. why?
While this was an enjoyable, quick read I definitely think there were some things I would have liked to have seen done differently.
You can purchase a copy of The Mall here
