book review

Book Review: Diary of a Chav: Trainers V. Tiaras, by Grace Dent

2nd May 2010 By Julianne Leave a Comment

So much for ramming the word iPod into every sentence since last June. On Christmas Day, fifteen-year-old Shiraz Bailey Wood is given a pink leather diary with a lock and the first book in the Diary of a Chav series begins.

It’s a tough year for our pink-hoodie-and-gold-hoop-earring wearing heroine. It turns out Shiraz’s best friend Carrie Draper actually got an iPod for Christmas, and has now decided that she wants a boyfriend. She plans to make Shiraz walk up and down the road with her until the boy she’s got her eye on notices them. Shiraz’s sister, Cava-Sue, now she’s at college studying Drama, has stopped wearing tracksuits and has started wearing dresses and black eyeliner. At school, the Mayflower Academy – the Superchav Academy to the rest of Essex – new English teacher Ms Bracket keeps talking about how they should try to get some GCSEs. Shiraz doesn’t think she needs any, she’ll just get a job until she goes on Big Brother and becomes rich and famous, but the teachers say that’s unlikely, and then, as if it couldn’t get any worse, she has to go on work experience!

Trainers V. Tiaras is one of the funniest books I’ve read. I laughed several times just on the first page, and made several of my friends read the first few pages so they’d know what I was laughing at. After a few chapters, I wasn’t giggling so regularly, but by then I was really into the story and liked the characters, so I finished the book within a couple of days. Grace Dent treats all her characters with generosity and creates realistic people out of the stereotypes. Shiraz is a character who is confident but aware of her own flaws, and I was cheering for her as she tries her best to sort her life out and keep her family together. There are five other books now in this series to follow on from this one, and I will definitely be checking them out.

I think adults will laugh as much as teenagers, and there are pop culture references in there that teens might miss but adults will probably get and vice versa. International readers may want to do a bit of preparatory googling to find out about the whole chav phenomenon.

Some people will say that the humour of Trainers V. Tiaras will date, however, The Funniest Two Books I Have Ever Ever Ever Read, French Letters: The Life and Loves of Miss Maxine Harrison and French Leave: Maxine Harrison Moves Out! by Eileen Fairweather (reviews for these forthcoming), were published in 1987 and 1996 respectively and reference Thatcherism and ordering clothes from catalogues. Remind me to re-read Trainers V. Tiaras in ten years and we’ll see.

This series has been bestselling and Shiraz has attracted thousands of fans, some of whom refuse to believe she’s not real! You can find out more about her, her author Grace Dent and all the books on the Shiraz Bailey Wood website.

Book Review: Breakers, by Julia Clarke

10th April 2010 By Julianne Leave a Comment

by Gidzy

17-year old Cat Meredith has a difficult life in London with her mother, Bianca, an actor, beautiful, glamourous, but self-absorbed. For most of her life, she and her little sister, Ana, lived with Cat’s grandmother, but when she passed away, they had to move into their mother’s flat. Bianca is highly emotional and pays little attention to the needs of her daughters. Cat has to work as much as possible at a local shop just so she can earn money to pay for basic things that they both need and Bianca has forgotten about. Cat had a boyfriend, Tim, but he went off backpacking, and has failed to phone her since.

But the most annoying thing is Bianca’s current lover, Hugo. He has Bianca wrapped around his little finger, and when one night they go out but he comes back, having told Bianca he forgot his wallet, and tries to seduce Cat, she can’t help telling him how much he irritates her. Big mistake. Hugo walks out of the flat, never to return or bother to tell Bianca he was going. Newly-single Bianca decides the best thing is for them all to leave London.

So Cat finds herself in Yorkshire, in need of a new job, new friends, and new love interest…

This is a pretty quick read, a small paperback, designed for the impatient teenagers of the world I think! The characterisation was very good and and I got emotionally involved in the story quickly, which unfortunately was why it disappointed me. There is a lot of conflict in Cat’s life, and she has difficult relationships with all her relatives – as well as her mother, she has problems with her sister, who is highly dependent on her and is 11 but acts like she’s four most of the time and her father. I expected the novel to resolve some of these issues, or for these relationships to at least change fundamentally, but they don’t. When I put the book down, I realised with considerable dismay that it had ultimately been a romance with a bit of family drama thrown in. At times Cat’s life just gets so bad I wondered when she was going to explode, and she never did. I wanted the family issues to be dealt with. They took up so much of the book, I felt cheated by the rather flat conclusion. This may have been down to publishing restrictions, the author might have had to rush the ending. Either way it is a shame as I enjoyed what I read until the ending, which seemed to come far too soon, without covering all the ground the book should have.

I would recommend this book, it is very well written despite the issues I have outlined above, but bear in mind that it will be a romance in the end! Like I said above, the size makes it ideal for teenagers with a short attention span, and teenagers will probably not mind so much about the ending. It is out of print at the moment, as far as I can tell, but can be bought from Amazon Marketplace and other stores that sell second hand books.

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