Louise Rennison is the bestselling and award-winning author of the angst-filled Confessions of Georgia Nicolson. Louise lives in Brighton, the San Francisco of England (apart from the sun, Americans, the Golden Gate Bridge, and earthquakes). You can visit Georgia online at www.georgianicolson.com. You can find more of my reviews of books from TIME's Best YA Books of All Time here.
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-front snogging with a Sex God, and Georgia's year might turn out to be the most fabbitty fab fab ever!
The story follows Georgia through one full year of her life when she's a young teenager. It is written like a diary, with entries for every month, and sometimes more than one entry per day. Georgia writes all her thoughts down—she holds nothing back, and the unfiltered access to her mind is one of the most appealing parts of the book. Georgia writes down everything—the fears people talk about, the curiosities no one voices, and frustrations hardly given attention to. In this way, I think Rennison does a fantastic job describing what it's like to be a teenage girl, because I sometimes found it crazy that this wasn't a real girl's diary.
The novel itself is very entertaining. The diary entries are very short, and I read this book in less than a day. Some of the comedy is just pure gold—especially what Georgia does to her hair near the end. I didn't laugh out loud or anything, but I had a feeling if I'd read this when I was the same age as Georgia, I would have. I sort of felt like I was watching the movie the whole time I was reading, as I could see all the scenes and the characters as they went through some rather ridiculous situations.
This book has earned many accolades, and I can see why it's on TIME's list. However, reading through it now, I have to say that I don't think it aged as well as it could have. There are some elements of the humor that could be offensive, and overall sometimes things just aren't as funny as they used to be. I also found that while Georgia's inner dialogue is super unfiltered and there are some relatable moments, there are some parts that just aren't relatable. So, I had a bit of trouble truly falling in love with this one, but I have a feeling that had I read it when I would twelve or thirteen, I would have loved it to pieces.
This book is part of a longer series, and if you want more information on that, you can visit Georgia online at www.georgianicolson.com. You can find more of my reviews of books from TIME's Best YA Books of All Time here.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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