Jessica Jordan is a 15 year old British girl with low self-esteem, flaky friends, and boy problems. Sound familiar? While similiar to Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicholson series (Angus, Thongs & Full-Frontal Snogging), Jess is a much much nicer character than Georgia. She isn't quite so self-asborbed, and she isn't mean. She thinks her arse is too big and her boobs too small (who doesn't?) and she's confused about boys-- there's the stud she's obsessed with and then her best mate who has always been there for her but is he really just a friend? Jess is a likeable character and this is an enjoyable story. The best part is Jess's mom is a librarian so there are funny lines about librarians. Naturally, being a librarian I thought this was hilarious. This by far is the funniest:"You might think that being a librarian would be a quiet, cushy job, but sometimes it seemed that the library was really a nightmarish extension of the mean streets and that librarians were just cops and paramedics disguised in tweedy cardigans and long dangly parrot earrings from the charity shop."
This is a good story, it's funny and Jess is a good character. There is a hysterical bit about Jess using sandwich bags full of minestrone to um, enhance, a certain area of her body with disastrous results. It's definitely a girl's book, I don't see many boys being tempted to read it. Although the word "sex" appears frequently, the act itself never appears. A good book for both middle school and high school girls, it'll leave you excited to read the sequel.
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Reading:
On My Nightstand: Girl, Nearly 16 Absolute Torture--Sue Limb
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