I'm Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl

August 8, 2016
In McNeil’s entertaining foray into romantic comedy, MIT-bound Beatrice is frustrated by her “Math Girl” nickname, especially after her boyfriend, Jesse, ditches her for Toile, the whimsical new girl at school. Devising a mathematical formula for finding high school happiness, Beatrice reinvents herself as Trixie, adopting the traits of the “manic pixie dream girl” archetype (among them “childlike playfulness” and the “single-minded goal male wish fulfillment”) to lure Jesse back from Toile, fighting fire with fire—or rather quirk with quirk. Beatrice also forces the formula onto her best friends Spencer and Gabe in an effort to help their social status, encouraging Spencer to recast himself as the school’s “resident artiste” and Gabe as a flamboyant, snarky sidekick type. Like Beatrice, McNeil (3:59) knows her way around a formula, and she toys with the conventions, expectations, and trajectory of a classic romantic comedy to examine stereotypes and the identities we project. Readers will easily recognize how misguided Beatrice’s plan is (and who the target of her romantic affections ought to be), but that doesn’t make watching the unfolding chaos any less fun. Ages 13–up. Agent: Ginger Clark, Curtis Brown.

July 15, 2016
A math whiz develops a formula to fix her high school experience.Beatrice has never been very popular in school. The half-Filipino, half-white math nerd can count her friends on just two fingers: the moody white artist Spencer and the Latino, gay Gabe. On the cusp of senior year Bea has secured a boyfriend, white and generic Jesse, and hopes that the jocks and popular crowd will focus their bullying efforts on incoming freshman and leave her and her friends alone. But when Jesse dumps her for quirky, white new girl Toile, Bea sets her mind to turning her high school social experience into an equation to be solved. By tweaking a few variables in their personalities, she ensures that Spencer becomes the hip and trendy school artiste, Gabe transforms into the school's queen, and Bea becomes Trixie, the school's Manic Pixie Dream Girl. McNeil enjoys breaking down the formula that makes up the standard MPDG and exposing it for the sexist nonsense it is, but she never lets that get in the way of Bea's emotional journey. The love rhombus crafted here is a tad predictable, but the excitement's in the execution: the author's strong characterizations and smart humor put this above most similar titles. Bea's cold and clinical nature is another plus: she isn't driven by raging libido but rather a righteous anger that makes her a calculating badass. A quintessential thinking gal's love story. (Fiction. 12-16)

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September 1, 2016

Gr 7 Up-Beatrice, known by her classmates as "Math Girl," is fed up. She and her best friends, Spencer and Gabe, are constantly bullied at school. However, Beatrice believes that senior year will be different: she has a new boyfriend and is practically guaranteed acceptance at MIT. Too bad reality doesn't match Bea's hopes. On the first day of school, the protagonist's new boyfriend becomes her ex-boyfriend when the new girl, Toile, steals him away. Instead of just rolling with it and continuing the last year of high school as a loser, Bea comes up with a mathematical formula that's bound to catapult her friends and her to popular status. The elevation of social status comes with a myriad of issues that Trix (formerly Bea) never considered before. McNeil takes a formulaic idea and makes it fresh. This work features the trope of the outcast changing into a beautiful butterfly, but it is different enough to feel new yet familiar enough to get lost in. While this title contains bullying, a bit of profanity, and general high school mischief, it points out how every kid, no matter how popular or odd, has a story. VERDICT Fans of contemporary novels, particularly Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, will find this offering very satisfying.-Nicole Detter-Smith, Homestead High School, IN

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2016
Grades 9-12 For Bea, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, that quirky adorable ray of sunshine sent to make a man's life better, was just a trope . . . until one (named Toile) flitted into her homeroom in a granny cardigan and affected French accent and stole her boyfriend, Jesse. But never fear: math genius Bea devises the formula, a foolproof (and mathematically proven) route to high-school popularity, which propels her bullied friends Spencer and Gabe to the top of the hierarchy and turns Bea into Trixie, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl of her ex's dreams. But at the end of the day, is that what Bea really wants? With peppy writing and lots of pop culture references, this story clips along at a nice pace, posing thoughtful questions about social constructs, popularity, and being true to oneself. Though sharp-eyed readers may question why Bea doesn't have female friends and might spot the endgame romance coming a mile away, this witty romancea mashup of Mean Girls and Meg Cabot's How to Be Popular (2006)oozes rom-com appeal.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2017
Bullied MIT-hopeful Bea creates a mathematical formula to ensure she and her two best guy friends achieve social success senior year. But when Bea's boyfriend ditches her for the -quirky- new girl, she tweaks the formula's plan, rebranding herself as Trixie, the ideal manic pixie dream girl. Predictably but enjoyably, Bea learns that formulas can't control everything in this comedic exploration of stereotyping.

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)