A review by hyebitshines
A Totally Awkward Love Story by Tom Ellen, Lucy Ivison

3.0

I can see why a lot of reviews compared this to Skins, and it's not only because it's about a group of partying British teens. There were so many odd coincidences, the trampoline Hannah almost loses her virginity on after being set up with a boy by her best friend, Stella. Stella was like a version of Mimi, and there was even a Panda. Sam read a lot like Sid, Chris was Tony, etc. There was a Grace too (yay!), although her loveliness turned a bit sour what with her cheating storyline (and the Grace in Skins would never oAo). I couldn't help making these small connections, but I had all the more fun with these characters because they felt like old friends.

This is the sort of laugh-out-loud writing that's easy to fall into, and I don't know, I appreciated just how realistic this was after the deluge of YA that keeps on stamping out true love and characters being held back from their true potential. Nope, all these characters-- Hannah, Sam, Stella, Robin, etc.-- were unglamorously ordinary, maybe except for their varying degrees of hotness. Side note-- I loved Robin's not-so-subtle obsession with Harry Potter, and his even less subtle ways of trying to pass it off as his sister's obsession.

Not a book I would necessarily choose to re-read, but I had a jolly laugh, as I say in my poor attempt to sound British <3