Juvenile Fiction
Harper Collins
2013-08-13
272
2001 Michael L Printz Honor Book
Angus: My mixed-breed cat, half domestic tabby, half Scottish wildcat. The size of a small Labrador, only mad. Thongs: Stupid underwear. What's the point of them, anyway? They just go up your bum, as far as I can tell. Full-Frontal Snogging: Kissing with all the trimmings, lip to lip, open mouth, tongues ... everything. Her dad's got the mentality of a Teletubby (only not so developed). Her cat, Angus, is trying to eat the poodle next door. And her best friend thinks she looks like an alien -- just because she accidentally shaved off her eyebrows. Ergghhhlack. Still, add a little boy-stalking, teacher-baiting, and full-frontal snogging with a Sex God, and Georgia's year just might turn out to be the most fabbitty fab fab ever!
Originally published January 1st, 1999
So, I laughed at a few spots (out loud even), but generally? I thought this was really dumb, and the main character was needlessly silly and self-centered. There was no point (that I could discern), no growth (she was silly all the way through), and I can’t figure out why this was considered deserving of a Printz honor.
I know I’m not the target audience, but this felt to me like the worst of what YA has to offer — the kind of book that gets held up when people want to pooh-pooh YA.
As I said about a previous book, I don’t necessarily have to “like” a character to care about them, but in this case, not only did I not like Georgia, I didn’t really care about what happened to her.
From looking at reviews and ratings, I can tell that plenty of other people did think this book was pretty great. I won’t hold it against them, I guess.
