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finesilkflower's review against another edition
3.0
This is one of those "painfully angsty" type books that really makes you feel that being a teenager is a horrible, soulsucking experience, and I appreciate these books as a nice reality check alongside the lighthearted chick-lit or relentlessly idealistic/optimistic (Babysitters Club). But, they're not really that much FUN.
It feels as though author Claire Robertson was trying to write a female Adrian Mole (considering this was a few years after Mole, it's plausible, though they might just be part of the same genre). It's the same sort of sensibility: angsty, too-smart-for-her-own-good-yet-oh-so-dumb teen uses clever wording and a strange combination of self-awareness and lack of self-awareness to blow tiny things way out of proportion. She even has the requisite quarreling parents and vague desire for social activism.
This is the kind of book that sinks or swims on the cleverness of its writing, and Robertson does an admirable job on the line-by-line level. It is nice when a first-person teen book doesn't seem dumbed down for kids; when the narrator just goes all out with the funny, obscure words and phrases. However, Robertson doesn't quite hit the level of funny absurdity necessary to even out the unrelenting angstiness of the character's world and worldview. It's not a world that's fun to escape into. (If I have to read one more passage about the smallness or nonexistence of a character's breasts, I'm going to scream.)
My major problems come from the framing device, the "letters." The story is written as a series of letters to an advice columnist. We never see the columnist's responses, although Gilly sometimes references them, so we know they exist. This could be done well, if each letter were actually framed like a plea for advice with all the particulars given. I'm picturing "Dear Mr. Henshaw" type thing where the letters start out short and to the point, and get more and more complex until they start to read like diary entries, and that's part of the joke. And the earlier letters would be sure to contain a question, but then later on maybe she forgets to put a question, or she's just thinking of the Agony Aunt like a pen pal. But it should take some time to get there! Gilly just launches in like a diary right away. I know why--because the author cared more about the story than the framing device--but if she wasn't going to USE the framing device, she shouldn't have included it. It's not even thematically linked; there's no "advice" motif within the story itself. It's pretty obvious that it started as a diary book, and she should have just kept it that way. (But then, of course, it would have been exactly like Adrian Mole!)
This focus of the book is on day-to-day events, but there is an arc;
It feels as though author Claire Robertson was trying to write a female Adrian Mole (considering this was a few years after Mole, it's plausible, though they might just be part of the same genre). It's the same sort of sensibility: angsty, too-smart-for-her-own-good-yet-oh-so-dumb teen uses clever wording and a strange combination of self-awareness and lack of self-awareness to blow tiny things way out of proportion. She even has the requisite quarreling parents and vague desire for social activism.
This is the kind of book that sinks or swims on the cleverness of its writing, and Robertson does an admirable job on the line-by-line level. It is nice when a first-person teen book doesn't seem dumbed down for kids; when the narrator just goes all out with the funny, obscure words and phrases. However, Robertson doesn't quite hit the level of funny absurdity necessary to even out the unrelenting angstiness of the character's world and worldview. It's not a world that's fun to escape into. (If I have to read one more passage about the smallness or nonexistence of a character's breasts, I'm going to scream.)
My major problems come from the framing device, the "letters." The story is written as a series of letters to an advice columnist. We never see the columnist's responses, although Gilly sometimes references them, so we know they exist. This could be done well, if each letter were actually framed like a plea for advice with all the particulars given. I'm picturing "Dear Mr. Henshaw" type thing where the letters start out short and to the point, and get more and more complex until they start to read like diary entries, and that's part of the joke. And the earlier letters would be sure to contain a question, but then later on maybe she forgets to put a question, or she's just thinking of the Agony Aunt like a pen pal. But it should take some time to get there! Gilly just launches in like a diary right away. I know why--because the author cared more about the story than the framing device--but if she wasn't going to USE the framing device, she shouldn't have included it. It's not even thematically linked; there's no "advice" motif within the story itself. It's pretty obvious that it started as a diary book, and she should have just kept it that way. (But then, of course, it would have been exactly like Adrian Mole!)
This focus of the book is on day-to-day events, but there is an arc;