Mia the Meek by Eileen Boggess

Summary/Cover Image from Publisher's Website:

Mia Fullerton has entered her freshman year at St. Hilary’s with a goal: to lose her nickname “Mia the Meek,” and soar into a confident high school career. Unfortunately, her transformation is made harder by her English-teacher mom, bratty little brother, already popular nemesis, and new neighbor. Although she’s prepared herself for the battle by reading Excruciatingly Shy: How to Defeat Public Fear and Become Popular, her freshman year remains a series of uphill battles.

The week before school starts, Mia wakes up to discover new neighbors have moved in next door. Forced by her mother to take them her special chocolate chip cookies, Mia first encounters Tim – the handsome yet seemingly arrogant oldest son of the family. Their relationship develops based on competition – from literature to the basketball court – and Mia’s got her work cut out for her.

School begins and Mia immediately meets with all sorts of (often humorous) challenges – from having a locker right next to her arch-enemy Cassie, to being paired with Tim for science lab, to having her mom as her very own English teacher. Before she knows it, her best friend has nominated her for class president, and, what’s worse, she’s running against Cassie! Mia embraces her nomination when she learns that her crush, Jake Harris, has seconded it. After all, what better way to emerge from her shell?

Review:

I have to admit that when I first saw the cover of this one, as well as the other two, I was extremely hesitant to give the Mia series a go, since to me the cover screams low end middle-grade. Though, after much thought I decided to take the whole Mia series with me on vacation, and boy, oh boy, did I love them all, especially this one!

Mia has finally decided that this year is the year she'll drop the name given to her in elementary school- Mia the Meek; so soon she makes it her purpose to be out going through several tasks, such as running for class president, talking to her long-time crush, as well as countless other endeavors. Though, will they pay off? Only time and pages will tell!

Mia is a character I adored right of the bat. She was smart, savvy, and just an overly hilarious character to read about. I, as I'm sure countless others, could relate to her shyness, since believe it or not, when I was young I was incredibly shy, though over the years, like Mia, I have made it my purpose to become out-going. Also, I loved her friendship with Lisa, the intellect of her grade whose scientific talk often provided for laugh-out-loud moments just because of how far off it seemed, as well as her rivalry with her brother Cris, which also provided funny moments, and her romance with Tim, the boy who was easy to love to hate.

The plot of this provided to be addicting given the different events, as well as it's short length and Boggess easy, smooth writing. And while some of Mia's problem's solutions always seemed a bit cliched, it wasn't the biggest of problems.

In all, Mia the Meek is a thoughtful, romantic, and funny read based on the universal problem of shyness; a book I highly suggest you pick up, even though the cover is hideous.

Grade: B+

Mia the Meek is now out!

Source: Author. Thanks Eileen!