Book Review: Oh Yeah, Audrey!

Book: Oh Yeah, Audrey! by Tucker Shaw

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Description:

It’s 5:00 a.m. on Fifth Avenue, and 16-year-old Gemma Beasley is standing in front of Tiffany & Co. wearing the perfect black dress with her coffee in hand—just like Holly Golightly. As the cofounder of a successful Tumblr blog—Oh Yeah Audrey!—devoted to all things Audrey Hepburn, Gemma has traveled to New York in order to meet up with her fellow bloggers for the first time. She has meticulously planned out a 24-hour adventure in homage to Breakfast at Tiffany’s; however, her plans are derailed when a glamorous boy sweeps in and offers her the New York experience she’s always dreamed of. Gemma soon learns who her true friends are and that, sometimes, no matter where you go, you just end up finding yourself. Filled with hip and sparkling prose, Oh Yeah, Audrey! is as much a story of friendship as it is a love letter to New York, Audrey Hepburn, and the character she made famous: Holly Golightly.



Rating: 4 stars

Review:

The story focused on a day of adventure for 16 year old Gemma Beasley who along with two of her friends Trina and Bryan meet up in New York City to celebrate the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's. The three of them are the ultimate Audrey Hepburn fans and run the blog Oh Yeah, Audrey!. They have the whole day planned from first stopping at Tiffany's to recreate the opening scene from the movie. They plan to end the day seeing the movie at midnight and meet up again the next morning at Tiffany's before heading home.

Their plans change a bit when a girl Telly who normally posted mean things about Audrey Hepburn shows up. She explained her internet behavior and although it took a while they soon invited her to join them. Telly mentioned that there was going to be an auction at Sotheby's that might interest the group. Some of Audrey Hepburn's clothes and accessorizes were being auctioned off that morning.

Just when Gemma was enjoying the day watching as various pieces of Hepburn's collection is being auctioned off, the one dress she adores is up on the auction block. Despite Bryan's family finances there is no way they could afford it. The group planned to leave when another one of her Internet friends and crush Dusty showed up to purchase the dress. Gemma had met Dusty when he had found the blog and had asked for help with a class assignment. After that initial meeting, he and Gemma quickly started to talk over the phone to get to know each other.

That dress purchase leads to Gemma's plans changing again. Dusty asked her out for dinner. She's hesitate to change her plans and ditch her friends but being swept off her feet seems like something that will never happen again.

She finally accepts but she does plan to be back in time for all of them to go see the movie together. However, as the date goes on she's starting to wonder if Dusty is the right guy for her. He's seems to be all show and no substance. On paper he's a fairy tale but in person he seems to be far than Mr. Wonderful. The night is soon getting away from her and she is finding it hard to leave Dusty and head back to her friends.

I found Dusty too controlling, he was directing the course of the entire date and I kept waiting for Gemma to realize that he's a shallow jerk and go meet up with her friends. The whole point of the weekend was for them to celebrate Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I really like this book but there were a couple of things I didn't like: 1) was the way Gemma treated her dad. She wasn't the only one dealing with the death of her mother. It's understandable that's he was being a little over protective but she didn't have to make it seem like he should just leave her alone. She constantly ignored his texts to her.

2) the way she immediately forgot about the reason she went to New York. As soon as Dusty showed up she forgot all about enjoying the day with her friends. She started to ignore them just as much as her father. It soon became all about Dusty.

Although the ending was left open, you can tell Gemma was on the way to figuring out her life and get to know who she really is and not living her life through Holly Golightly. As well as patching things up with her friends and her father.

This was a sort of coming of age story where Gemma was still dealing with the death of her mother and through her grief she created a blog devoted to Audrey Hepburn and ended up meeting two new friends. She may have learned the hard way about living life the Holly Golightly way but it was the lesson she sort of needed to learn.

This was a good book about friendship, romance, fashion and finding one's self.