Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Hope.

Where do I even begin? This book... I didn't like it at all.


First, as you can probably tell, the book is about a British teenager. And since I had an ARC, the book only had about five of the British words in the glossary, while the published copy will have a "full glossary of about 12-16 pages." Okay, that's good for a British ARC - but for an American? I didn't understand a lot of things because I didn't have a full glossary.


Second, this book did not get interesting until close to the end. The only reason I actually didn't just stop and not finish it was because I was bored on my vacation and had nothing else to do. It drags horribly all the way through the beginning and the middle.


Next, the description on the back of the book says that she tries to do everything she can to prove she's not a chav, but from what I read, she doesn't really do much. In school, she hides the fact that she is actually doing her work and trying to do good so her friends won't make fun of her for sucking up to the teacher. She wants to go to college, but the only person she tells is her grandmother. She dresses like all the chavs and acts like them too - so the back of the book was really misleading to me.


The back of the book also says that Shiraz had a "funny voice and spirited narrative." From reading that, I would think that I would actually find stuff that Shiraz's writes funny... but I didn't. There were only a few things that I found funny about it, and the rest of the time the book kind of just dragged on.


As you can probably tell, I didn't really like this book, and I wouldn't recommend it for you to get it when it is published in October. If you really want to read it, I would wait for a softcover or get it from your library.