Brooklyn Girls by Gemma Burgess

About the book

Brooklyn Girls is the first book in the new adult series of the same name by Gemma Burgess. The book was published on 4^th July by Quercus and it is 352 pages long.

Plot Synopsis

Graduate Pia lives with her friends in a wonderful town house in Brooklyn. But, she has no job, often makes a fool out of herself on Facebook and is having trouble figuring out her life… and how to pay the rent! Pia knows that she’s expected to act like the adult that she is but she can’t seem to stop herself from drinking, partying, hooking up and generally having a damn good time. It’s time to figure out what to do with her life but she never thought that would include a food truck and a loan shark.

What I thought

This is the first book in a series and concentrated on the character Pia, one of the five girls who live together in Brooklyn, New York. Along with Pia there is Julia, Angie, Maddy and Coco – all twenty something graduates working in the real world for the first time. To start with, I really liked the set-up of this book. As a recent graduate myself, I know all too well what it’s like to leave university and have expectations put upon you. Pia especially gets a lot of pressure from her parents who live abroad to make something of herself and to be successful in the workplace.

Although this book does focus mainly on Pia, the other girls are all a big part of her story. The group of friends are extremely close and if something bad happens, all of them get involved. Some of the girls I liked more than others though. Pia is a really fun girl to read about due to the kinds of things that she gets up to. She’s a pretty fun loving character who likes to go out and have a good time – what 22 year old doesn’t? I really enjoyed following the girls and their antics because they reminded me of a time where I was going out all of the time and going a bit crazy.

The plot follows Pia as she gets fired from one job and realises that she needs to sort her life out quickly. This book has a fun and interesting plot which I enjoyed a lot. Pia ends up buying an old food truck on a whim and has to make it work for her and her lifestyle. There were plenty of laugh out loud moments throughout this book due to the situations that Pia gets herself into. At the same time as figuring out a new career, there are a few love interests which was a nice addition. However, romance is not the main focus of this book which made for a refreshing change.

What I loved about this book was that it was real. Gemma Burgess doesn’t write fluffy love stories and happy endings but instead, she writes about the problems of real people. Pia has realised that she majored in a subject that is completely useless and she’s unemployable. She has no experience, no goals and no drive whatsoever. Being an adult and living away from parents means having to feed yourself, pay the bill and the rent and all of these subjects are tackled really well. There is a great mix of important issues along with some really entertaining events going on.

While I did enjoy the majority of this book, there were a few things that bugged me. The language used between the group of friends was annoying as hell. I get that they’re all young and want to use ‘cool’ words but some of it was far too much for me. If you’ve read this yourself then you’ll probably know which words I’m talking about. Also, the girls have ridiculous nicknames for themselves which I absolutely could not stand. It was all a bit childish and didn’t make the characters seem cool at all.

Even with the annoying language, this was a pretty fun book to read. There’s plenty going on, interesting characters and it is also funny. I’m looking forward to reading more about these Brooklyn Girls and I hope each of them get their own story.