Starlight Book Review – Megan McCafferty’s The Mall

Cover of Book – The Mall by Megan McCafferty – centered on a light turquoise background with the “Starry Night Elf” Logo in the lower right hand corner | Cover Image Source: Goodreads

Set in the Day Stellar Reading Challenge – 1990s

Set in the Year 1991/ Published in 2020

Trigger Warning – sexual harassment/casual sex/ slut-shaming (occurs but not condoned by author)/ divorce/ cheating.

3.75/5 I realize I’m dating myself but the 1990s is the first decade I remember well. I lived and experienced them and my recall of the Nineties is clear and direct. So I knew I would likely be more critical of someone “getting it wrong.” When I discovered Megan McCafferty’s The Mall, a book set in 1991, I thought I might be able to set aside some of my sharp analysis as I’m more “familiar” with the latter part of the decade. So, I chose The Mall as my 1990s entry for the Set in the Day Stellar Reading Challenge (SRC).

Click here for more information on this SRC.

“New York Times bestselling author Megan McCafferty returns to her roots with this YA coming of age story set in a New Jersey mall… The year is 1991. Scrunchies, mixtapes and 90210 are, like, totally fresh. Cassie Worthy is psyched to spend the summer after graduation working at the Parkway Center Mall. In six weeks, she and her boyfriend head off to college in NYC to fulfill The Plan: higher education and happily ever after… But you know what they say about the best laid plans…Set entirely in a classic “monument to consumerism,” the novel follows Cassie as she finds friendship, love, and ultimately herself, in the most unexpected of places. Megan McCafferty, beloved New York Times bestselling author of the Jessica Darling series, takes readers on an epic trip back in time to The Mall.”

I probably finished McCafferty’s The Mall in a week. While I knew of the various shopping mall mainstays – Cinnebon, Orange Julius, Hickory Farms, and watched “Beverly Hills 90210” in rerun on Saturday afternoons as a tween and teen, my 1990s were more Gloria Jean’s, Chick-Fil-A, and “Dawson’s Creek.” While a quick read, narrator Cassie Worthy took a little while to evoke sympathy from me. I found myself more interested in her former friend Drea’s story. I found The Mall an easy, quick read and I liked the treasure hunt, a deep dive into late Eighties/ early Nineties pop culture. Sometimes, Cassie seemed rather shallow. While not hard to understand the vocabulary, I recommend this book for more mature teens due to some of the content.

Quotes come from book flaps/cover and are featured on color blocks.

Set in the 1990s | Set in the Day Stellar Reading Challenge

Badge for Reading a Book Set in the 1990s © Starry Night Elf

As September continues here on the Starry Night Elf (SNE) Blog, we also wax nostalgic and dream of the 90s when selecting books for the Set in the Day Stellar Reading Challenge (SRC)! Select a book that was not published in the 1990s but with at least a third of the work taking place between January 01, 1990 and December 31, 1999. As long as the book takes place in the the 1990s, this can be a work of either fiction or nonfiction.

Don’t miss out on posts in the Starry Night Elf SRC Group on Goodreads! Click on the following links for recommendations of books Set in the 1990s! What do you recommend for books Set in the 1990s? Please share in the comments here on SNE or on Goodreads!

Fiction

Nonfiction