Review - 'The Shampoo Effect' by Jenny Jackson

Sorry to say, but the characters in The Shampoo Effect had the emotional intelligence of slugs, so it was hard to get into a story like that.

The premise was interesting enough. Caroline goes off to Greenhead to work on her writing and falls in love with local boy Van, who then introduces her to his ragtag group of close friends. But it soon comes out that his ex is pregnant with their child, and so chaos and hilarity ensues. Or rather, I thought hilarity would ensue. But instead, I just got a lot of whatever the female equivalent of bro vibes is and the sort of drunken idiocy I haven't seen since college frat parties.

All the characters in here were really something. Clueless, self-absorbed, mean and cliquey, they really embodied the worst of growing up (or not growing up, as the case may be). We follow them as they drank and did weed and mushrooms, acting like fools and occasionally throwing in a game of truth or dare just to liven things up. But lest you think this was a story about teenagers, they're actually adults in their thirties with children of their own.

And so the stupidity continues. The problems were real, but the way they dealt with them was distinctively immature. Everyone's favorite miscommunication trope was here in spades. Why say a simple sentence to your partner when you can hold it in for years? Why speak your mind when you can just smile and swallow your anger and let resentment fester? And so these hapless people carried on, unable to discern why they were unhappy with themselves and their partners.

This is written with an ensemble cast. And while I don't necessarily mind such a structure, it is imperative that each character feels distinct and stands out on their own. Otherwise, they all just blend together and you start having trouble keeping them apart. And unfortunately, that's what happened here.

When you have so many unpleasant, emotionally stunted characters, it can make the whole thing feel off-putting. What should've been a group of friends discovering themselves and growing wiser instead turns into a shallow spree of mean girls and guys learning lessons they should've figured out a decade ago.

Speaking of mean, at one point, the story references Mean Girls (one of the sharpest satires on the school experience from the female perspective), so I have to wonder if that was the author's intention. But devoid of the necessary humor and insight that made the film so successful, what we have left here was just... mean girls.

So I leave this review with a selection of quotes from the book, all of them gems.

She had checked her reflection and noticed, with complete horror, a hair poking from her chin. She had tried to grab it with her fingernails, but it had been futile, and so she’d spent the entire walk trying to hide her face.

She spent two hours studiously ignoring both the soccer and the other parents while she played with her phone. She knew it was antisocial, but she had real friends.

It was how they survived parenthood and life with small children: They took turns dosing themselves with weed, mushrooms, and booze, whatever made the hard edges softer.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars