The Nicest Girl by Sophie Jo
Published by UCLan Publishing
THE Nicest Girl is a book about and for the kind of people who don’t think a book could really be for them.
It’s a story of both growth and self-acceptance about refusing to fade into the background of your own life and overcoming issues with people-pleasing.
In this way it feels like both a fictional story and an instructional guide. As the main character’s journey progresses, the reader is given the space to reflect on their life, on the influences that cause their decisions and confront a possibility for change. The lessons presented are so impactful, largely because we see them through the eyes of a character in the midst of learning, destroying any possibility of a patronising tone and allowing instead a sense of comfort and hope.
It’s the end of summer and Anna Campbell is going back to school for her final year and yet nothing seems to have changed about her life and the way others see her.
We find her as she begins to wonder how she ended up always being the girl people rely on, always the first asked for favours, kept up late at night talking her best friend Marla through the latest relationship crisis … over and over, unable to say no.
Despite always having a busy schedule and doing almost every household chore for her father, the word no gets caught in her throat and refusal to help someone builds in her mind to a personal betrayal. She grows to resent it and gets tired of always taking care of others rather than herself. It seems to be a cycle. Anna imagines a version of herself that is strong and secure, able to manage priorities and tell people the truth about her needs rather than constantly looking to meet theirs.
This person seems distant until the school year starts up and the fresh responsibilities pile on. Marla is yet again consumed by jealousy over a girl her boyfriend Carl has spoken to and Anna must repeat lines of advice she’s heard herself say and watched Marla ignore, time and time again. She hears herself agree to small favour after small favour until they stop seeming so small and start to seem like everything. She wonders what her identity would be without this.
Would she matter to others, to herself even, if she stopped doing everything they asked?
The narrative follows her through her search for the answer to this question and the version of herself she imagines when it gets to be too much.
This is a book that handles some of the questions of life people struggle to make the leap to discover about when “nice” becomes “too nice”, how to retain kindness in the face of fighting a detrimental people-pleasing instinct and the balance of doing so.
The first-person narration from Anna feels conversational and intimate yet mysterious. She shows that it is too easy to see yourself simply as what you do for others, and ensures young people do not have to be lost or alone in their search to express so much more.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here