BEING MARY BENNET By J.C. Peterson

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Being Mary Bennet by J.C. Peterson
Published by HarperTeen on 3/15/22
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 381
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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For Marnie Barnes, realizing she’s a Mary Bennet is devastating. But she’s determined to reinvent herself, so she enlists the help of her bubbly roommate and opens up to the world.

And between new friends, a very cute boy, and a rescue pup named Sir Pat, Marnie finds herself on a path to becoming a new person entirely. But she’s no Lizzy, or even Mary—instead, she’s someone even better: just plain Marnie.

Short and Sweet Review

Marnie has always been fine with who she is until someone tells her she’s more like Mary Bennet than Lizzie. This makes Marnie want to change who she is so maybe the people around her will realize how great she is.

Marnie feels like the black sheep of her family and feels like she doesn’t live up to her sisters accomplishments so she decides to try to win the Hunt Prize. She comes up with the idea to have kids read books to shelter dogs and that’s where she meets Whit one of the volunteers at the shelter and someone who helps her with her project. The problem here is that Whit is one of Marnie’s love interest in the book but she’s obsessed with Hayes (a friend of the family). Honestly Whit was a great guy and for some reason Marnie can’t see Hayes for the sleezeball he is.

Throughout the book we see Marnie become closer with her roommate Adhira, which I loved because they both needed a good friend in their life. We also see Marnie become closer with her family it was almost like she was alienating herself from them and not the other way around, I loved the relationship between her and Lindy. My favorite thing about this book was one of the shelter dogs, Sir Pat he was just so sweet and loving.

Marnie our main character went through a lot of character development in this book and thank goodness for that because who she was in the beginning made me see why she didn’t have that many friends. Marnie liked correcting people and she didn’t say the right things. But as the book goes on she becomes more self aware and more likable as a main character.

This was a good heartfelt read, I liked that Marnie eventually realized that she didn’t need to change everything about her but embrace the things that made her quirky. I also liked how she realized that some people shouldn’t have a place in your story. The plot was great and the friendship and family relationships were beautiful and just made me smile in the end, and so did the dogs, pick this book up!