I am giving “The Mall” is 3 star rating.
I found the references to everything 90s to be constant and annoying. I should have counted how many time the writer refers to a store, product, toy, TV show, movie, etc. from the 90s but that would be more than the pages of this novel. Even one of the chanracters nickname is Sam Goody.
The plot was basic enough. A girl gets mono and while recovering her boyfriend moves on with another girl. She also loses her job at the mall in the process and her parents are going to get a divorce. She then gets a new job and starts a complicated rekindling of her friendship with a girl that she hasn’t been friends with in a long time.
The character development was just poor in my opinion. I wanted to get to know more about the characters, but you really do not get backgrounds on anyone. I did not feel as though I really knew anyone in the novel…not even the main character. The romances in it just fell flat too.
Overall, it took me forever to sit down and finish this novel. I did finish it though. Nothing about this book made me want to finish it. I felt disconnected from the characters, there was no real action, and just the references really got to me.