Miss Understanding: My Year in Agony by (Lara Fox/T S Easton*) (June 2009, Hodder Children's Books, ISBN: 0340988827)
First Lines:
Miss Understanding Blog Entry
- 1st October 2009
Hey there you.Well I'm back everyone! After two weeks' break, in which I was taken by my grandparents and brought to their cottage in Devon.Review: Anya Buxton is a sixteen-year-old who runs the anonymous blog and advice column, Miss Understanding in which she hosts gossip about teachers, answers agony aunt questions and details her life (with fictitious names for her friends and family). The book comprises her online presence and runs between October 09 to June 10.
Anya's parents have divorced and she's living with her six-year-old brother at her mum's new home which has entailed a change of school and friends though she tries to keep up with her old group.
During the year Anya makes many mistakes, goes through some difficult times before resurfacing as a more mature individual.
I adored
Miss Understanding: My Year in Agony. It's very funny - the agony aunt questions and answers are a hoot - and in some ways it reminded me of
Back to Life by Joanna Nadin. It does seem to me to have an underlying theme - about the effect of divorce on children and how they have to adjust to the new arrangements and new partners. It feels very up to date with little touches like referring to Matt Smith as Doctor Who and I was a bit startled to see the blog entries labelled as 2010 as usually books are set a year or two earlier than present day. In short, Anya's life and her decisions kept me hooked and I really could not put this down. I'm very pleased that there's a sequel out next April:
Miss Understanding: My Summer on the Shelf.
There are some "rude bits" so again this is one probably for older teens.
Cover: I love the cover though I can't see many boys picking it up. The next one is blue.
*Author's Name? The author wishes to remain anonymous but for ease of finding this book - online bookshops list it as Lara Fox and inside the cover the copyright is for T S Easton (this copy was shelved under EAS in the library).
After a stint as the school agony aunt, Anya's forthcoming summer as an intern at a London publishing house comes as a breath of fresh air. It'll take her mind off Al - her AWOL boyfriend - at least, and maybe she'll get tips on how to be a writer, too. But it's clear that Anya's role is senior dogsbody - and involves reading terrible stories, listening to her colleague's Katie's domestic woes, and taking on a nightmarish teenage author, who is about five years late delivering his next 'best selling novel'. It's not quite the glitz and glamour Miss Understanding thought it would be, but it does have its plus points: Delicious Seth Hodges being one of them... Anya is torn between the suave Seth, the notorious waste of time The Boy, her lost boyfriend Al, not to mention the intriguing teenage writer Casper...So many boys, so little time. Another fresh, original and witty journey through Miss Understanding's life...
Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine.
