“It’s a Mall World After All” by Janette Rallison

“It’s a Mall World After All” by Janette Rallison is a humorous novel about a teenage girl and how her job at the local mall ends up changing her life.

Charlotte works in a department store at the local mall.  She sprays customers with free perfume samples and tries to get them to buy the latest popular perfume.  It’s not exactly a glamorous job, but it is a way to make money.  In addition, her spot right near the department store door is a great lookout point to watch for cute boys. But then one day Charlotte sees her best friend’s boyfriend Bryant flirting with a another girl.

Charlotte is sure that Bryant is cheating on her friend Brianna.  But when Charlotte breaks the news to Brianna there is an unexpected result.  Brianna seems willing trust Bryant and his friend Colton over Charlotte’s testimony!

Brianna seems to think that Charlotte is just being vengeful and trying to break up Bryant’s relationship with Brianna.  Many of the other girls and boys at Charlotte’s school think that Charlotte is stuck-up, and for good reason.  Charlotte seems to have held a grudge against all the boys at her school.

Years ago they teased her with spiders and called her Charlotte the spider after reading Charlotte’s Web.  Ever since Charlotte has held them in derision, even though most of the boys don’t even remember the teasing.

Bryant’s friend Colton tells Charlotte that Bryant would never cheat on Brianna.  He assures Charlotte that Bryant had a good reason for talking to that girl at the mall.  But Charlotte still thinks that something sounds fishy.  But is is just her own paranoid thoughts or is something going on?

“It’s a Mall World After All” is a fairly decent book, although it does have a few flaws.  First of all the title is rather corny, and not completely relevant as malls don’t play a particularly important role in most of the story.

In addition the back and forth interactions of Charlotte and her friends get frustrating after a while.  Although it is obvious that Charlotte likes Colton and that Colton is interested in Charlotte they seem to spend most of their time irritated at each other.  Even Charlotte’s attitude, with a giant chip on her shoulder, and an apparent lifelong grudge toward Bryant because he left a spider in her desk years ago, is ridiculous.  It reaches a point where the reader just wants to reach in through the pages of the book, slap Charlotte upside the head and tell her “Get over yourself!”

“It’s a Mall World After All” by Janette Rallison is a decent book, and well-written despite the slightly frustrating plot everything turns out satisfying in the end.  It will appeal to teenage readers interested in a realistic fiction romance story.

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