My Big Fat Teen Crisis product reviews

I picked this book up a wee while back. I was drawn to the cover. Its a nice bright yellow with stripey socked feet on it. The feet are pointed inwards, like you stand when you are feeling self-conscious. It will sound weird, but I felt I related to those feet so much.

I started reading the book late one night while waiting for my husband to come home. I found myself drawn in pretty quickly. I related to Sam, the main character very quickly. Having been a nerd or geek at high school, I found myself right back there as I read.

Sam has a best friend who is away, and it made me remember those days when a friend would move away and I would have months sometimes without someone to sit with for lunch. Hiding in the library with no one to talk to. I also related to wanting to fit in and change myself to do so.

I loved the inclusion of social media here. Though I did find it a bit weird that the school bully was "friends" with the other characters. It just seemed like something I personally wouldn't do. I did relate very much to the friended relative posting inappropriate messages! The people you don't feel like you can block. If they weren't blood they would be OUT.

I found this book really enjoyable to read. It brought back both good and bad memories. It would be an excellent read for a teenage girl or older.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Those horrible years of teenage angst are not to be relived or dwelt on in any depth but this book certainly captures what it is like to be a teenage girl today.

Set in England it probably translates best to English readers however the issues that 13 year old Sam Wallis faces are faced by girls everywhere in the developed world. Discovering who you are as a person and trying to reconcile how you feel with how you are perceived by others. Being true to yourself and true to your friends whilst at the same time wanting to experiment and try out different things. What happens when trying out new things goes terribly wrong. Having to deal with bullies and the impact that they have on your day to day life, especially in the modern age when absolutely everyone has Facebook, mobile phones and the gossip network is like wild fire.

This book deals with all those issues as well as the most obvious and most complicated, BOYS! Boy friends, friends with boys, brothers and relationships, and not just teenage relationships but those of parents and the issues they face as well.

This book manages to weave an enormous amount of "life" into a very readable story. I think Sam will appeal to any girl entering the teenage years and you instantly like Sam and can relate to how she is feeling. Written in the first person this book also mixes in a bit of face book messaging and hand written "positive and negative" lists so I felt as though I was totally in Sam's head.

The only qualm I have with this book is I am not sure that everything in here relates to a thirteen year old so I had think of Sam and her friends as being 14 ish to feel comfortable with the style of the book. That may well be me showing my age though as perhaps 13 year olds are that grown up now or I have forgotten!!

This is I think almost the girls modern day equivalent to Adrian Moles Diary.