TOUR / REVIEW: Screen Queens by Lori Goldstein / magical reads

**I received an ARC for this tour. These are my honest opinions, and in no way was I compensated for this review.**

Screen Queens by Lori Goldstein

Release Date: June 11, 2019

My Rating: 3.5 stars

Summary: The Bold Type meets The Social Network when three girls vying for prestigious summer internships through a startup incubator program uncover the truth about what it means to succeed in the male-dominated world of tech.

This summer Silicon Valley is a girls' club.

Three thousand applicants. An acceptance rate of two percent. A dream internship for the winning team. ValleyStart is the most prestigious high school tech incubator competition in the country. Lucy Katz, Maddie Li, and Delia Meyer have secured their spots. And they've come to win.

Meet the Screen Queens.

Lucy Katz was born and raised in Palo Alto, so tech, well, it runs in her blood. A social butterfly and CEO in-the-making, Lucy is ready to win and party.

East Coast designer, Maddie Li left her home and small business behind for a summer at ValleyStart. Maddie thinks she's only there to bolster her graphic design portfolio, not to make friends.

Delia Meyer taught herself how to code on a hand-me-down computer in her tiny Midwestern town. Now, it's time for the big leagues--ValleyStart--but super shy Delia isn't sure if she can hack it (pun intended).

When the competition kicks off, Lucy, Maddie, and Delia realize just how challenging the next five weeks will be. As if there wasn't enough pressure already, the girls learn that they would be the only all-female team to win ever. Add in one first love, a two-faced mentor, and an ex-boyfriend turned nemesis and things get...complicated.

Filled with humor, heart, and a whole lot of girl power, Screen Queens is perfect for fans of Morgan Matson, Jenny Han, and The Bold Type.

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I am lucky enough to be a part of the blog tour for Screen Queens today! My stop includes my review as well as a playlist I made for the book. Don't forget to check out the rest of the tour, schedule and a giveaway below!

We want girls to learn, we want them to have fun, we want them to be empowered, to realize they can be a part of a world like tech that maybe they can't see themselves in as easily as other fields.

Screen Queens was an interesting read, particularly in that it deals with girls in the technology field. I myself am a girl in tech although I'm fairly new to the field, but I loved reading about other girls succeeding in this field. There were some aspects of this book that I wasn't familiar with, but some that I actually did know, so that's proof that you learn things in school, kids. I'm not sure that we've gotten such an in-depth discussion of girls in tech in a YA book, so I recommend this if you're interested in that.

Our three main characters, Lucy, Maddie, and Delia, are assigned to the same team at an elite coding camp. They all have different reasons for being at ValleySmart, and they all have different issues they're dealing with. I liked that, while they initially don't get along, they eventually build a strong friendship.

I liked the girls' app idea, although calling it "Lit" is a little . . . cringey. Also, the whole concept of Pulse, a viral app in this novel, was actually really intriguing. Basically, it combines all your likes and page views to give you a standing, from 1 (comatose) to 10 (crushin' it). The higher standing you have, the cooler you are. Honestly, this could totally be an app today.

The plot is very interesting, especially as each girl has her own story line, and the pacing is good. It's hard to believe all this happens in five weeks, but honestly, when you're under pressure, a lot of things just fly by. I really loved how all three girls' story arcs ended.

However, all of the characters were so flat, and by that, I mean that they are incredibly two-dimensional and have very little growth until the very end. That was a bit irritating to read and made the dialogue stale. I also found their narratives to be very impersonal because of this, although I might be influenced by the fact that I've had some similar experiences yet couldn't relate to what they're going through.

Screen Queens details the very real experiences of women in tech today: the gender disparity, sexism, and sexual harassment. I also love that they strive to encourage girls to pursue a career in this field at a young age; many girls drop out over the years because they are a minority in the field.

Here's a playlist I made for the book (all links open to youtube):

"Take Me as I Am" by Rina Sawayama
"Karma" by MARINA
"Word Smith" by Bülow
"Swan Song" by Dua Lipa
"Woman's World" by Little Mix
"Successful" by Ariana Grande
"Are You Satisfied?" by MARINA
"Famous" by Charli XCX
"Army" by Ellie Goulding
"IDGAF" by Dua Lipa
"Perfect Places" by Lorde
"Nightmare" by Halsey

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | IndieBound

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About the Author: Author of SCREEN QUEENS, coming from Razorbill, June 11, 2019, and available for preorder now (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and IndieBound) about three teen girls who attend a startup incubator in Silicon Valley and learn what it means to compete in the male-dominated world of tech.

My Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy series Becoming Jinn and Circle of Jinn is a modern spin on the traditional tale of wish-granting genies (Feiwel and Friends/Macmillan).

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