YA -All Fall Down: A Review of Not That Kind of Girl by Siobhan Vivian

On Goodreads:  Not That Kind of Girl

On Amazon:  Not That Kind of Girl

(Goodreads Blurb)

Natalie Sterling wants to be in control. She wants her friends to be loyal. She wants her classmates to elect her student council president. She wants to find the right guy, not the usual jerk her school has to offer. She wants a good reputation, because she believes that will lead to good things.

But life is messy, and it's very hard to be in control of it. Not when there are freshman girls running around in a pack, trying to get senior guys to sleep with them. Not when your friends have secrets they're no longer comfortable sharing. Not when the boy you once dismissed ends up being the boy you want to sleep with yourself - but only in secret, with nobody ever finding out.

Slut or saint? Winner or loser? Natalie is getting tired of these forced choices - and is now going to find a way to live life in the sometimes messy, sometimes wonderful in-between.

While I could definitely relate to Natalie, she infuriated me beyond belief.  I loved her level-headed reasoning, at the same time I wanted to knock some sense into her.  Mostly, I think, because she reminded me so much of myself as a teenager.

Natalie Sterling seems to have it all together.  She has her best friend, good grades, she just won the election for Class President, and she is on her way to getting a college recommendation from her favorite teacher.  Senior year was set up to be a breeze.  Too bad that fate has a way of making a joke of your best laid plans.

Connor Hughes is a jock and a jerk by association.  Natalie has never liked Connor's football friends and after a dirty fight against football player, Mike Domski, for class president, she dislikes the lot of them even more. So why can she not get Connor out of her head.

Natalie's tight grip on her life is causing it to unravel.  Her best friend is looking elsewhere for friendship.  Her young protege is not playing by Natalie's rules.  Her late night rendezvous with a certain gorgeous football player seems to be taking over her life.

It takes a lot of mistakes, a big mess, and many tears for Natalie to come to the realization that she doesn't have to be in control of everything.

It didn't matter if I was the kind of girl who had sex, or the kind of girl who had her photo on the wall in the library, or the kind of girl who got into the best college, or the kind of girl who didn't tell her parents everything, or the kind of girl who teachers loved.

I just needed to be okay with all  the kinds of girl I was.

Natalie learned to accept herself and her friends.  Most importantly, she learned that change is not something to fear.

This was a solid 4 out of 5 stars for me.