Jacqueline Wilson

Standard Jacqueline Wilson misery-lit for children. Lily lives with her three younger siblings and her feckless mum. Her mum decides her main priority is to go off to Spain on holiday with a cute younger guy she has only just met, and leaves the children alone (well, she makes a very minimal effort to get their father to come and look after them by leaving an answerphone message). Lily does her best, but it is heartbreaking to watch her try to keep things together as the kids live on crisps show more and icecream and become grubbier and grubbier. Eventually they go feral and live in the park, stealing left over cafe meals.

Jacqueline Wilson does a good job of drawing her characters sympathetically, even when they are behaving appallingly (Lily's younger brother is particularly obnoxious, violent and bad mouthed, but you still end up feeling fond of him and sorry for him.) It does still feel a little bit laid on with a trowel though.

There are some lovely bits when they're wild camping in the park, with deer and sunrises.

It lost half a star from me for the ending. In the earlier Jacqueline Wison books, there is usually some sort of optimistic 'things are going to get better now'. And with an adult perspective I can see that at the end of this book, social services are involved and Lily is not left to struggle on, but from Lily's point of view the ending is in a heartbreaking place. Her mum has been arrested and it's not clear if she'll be sent to prison or not, she's been separated from her younger siblings despite her being the main force for good in their lives (they've gone to a foster carer who doesn't take older children), and she has been left alone in a children's home. And the only kind responsible adult in her life who she likes (her teacher) she now hates because he has 'betrayed' them by reporting them to social services. It was a miserable end to the book! show less

I really enjoyed this, which is a solidly typical Jacqueline Wilson. Ella's mum has remarried, and is having a baby with her step-dad, who Ella generally resents for messing up the shape of her life. But then her mum ends up gravely ill in a coma after having the baby and Ella and her step-dad have to learn to support each other while looking after the baby.

It captures some of the rawness of grief perfectly, when someone is trying so hard to be nice to you, and you're just angry and hurt and show more everything is _wrong_ and you're horrid back to them.

There's a lot of very Jacqueline Wilson-esque subplots - Ella's biological dad turns up for a chapter, and is ridiculously rubbish, Ella discovers that the nasty girl at school is nasty because she's got an abusive step-dad and a mum who is horrid to her, Ella finds out that when her best friend makes a new friend, she can make a new friend too, even if they're a boy!

I have to say, the thing I didn't like most about this book was the happy ending. The rest of it is really well crafted, the grief, the denial, trying to stay optimistic while the bad news comes in the cracks. I'm not saying I wanted Ella's mum to die, or to have to live in a PVS . But it felt like the strength of the story was showing how Ella manages to become closer to her step dad and brother, and get enthusiastic about her whale project, and make new friends, even though this terrible thing has happened. Tacking on a happy ending felt almost like it undermined all that. And it felt _so_ tacked on! It all happens on literally the last page, and feels very cliched and saccharine. I find myself wondering if Jacqueline Wilson had written the (in my opinion) more powerful ambiguous ending, where Ella is still sitting at her mum's bedside talking to her in her coma, and then got lent on with 'it's for kids, don't be so ridiculously bleak, of course her mum wakes up at the end' and tacked on the ending but her heart wasn't in it. show less

An enjoyable Jacqueline Wilson. Edie Trimmer is a Typical Jacqueline Wilson hero, loving drama and writing stories and being the centre of attention. When all her friends are chosen to be in Oliver and she is not, she is actually remarkably mature about it, but she is very sad. Then she finds herself travelling through time back to Victorian England! She is an impoverished orphan and has a sequence of grim adventures, will she ever work out how to get home?

It is definitely doing that common show more Jacqueline Wilson thing of 'let us teach the children about famous books by including them in my book', which I don't have a problem with at all, although maybe now I am in my 40s I would be better off reading Oliver than Wilson's homage to it.

The most interesting thing in this book was probably the character of Missus and Evie's response to her. She really does take Evie in off the street and feed her and give her a trade. But she really does lock her in the house all day and force her to sew dolls. The ambiguity of the character contrasted with Evie's Very Modern Ideas of what is good and how this woman is Horrid is interesting. There is something deep and true and sad in how kids can hate someone and feel horribly abused by them when they think they are trying to do their best and mother them.

The abusive police were also well done. Probably easier to write in a children's book because they're Victorian Police, but the fact she gets a serious headwound from one, and he just says 'well, I'll tell everyone you did it, and you'll make it worse for yourself if you complain' is true and brutal!

I was not expecting the framing of the 'realistic' reason. Edie is convinced she's travelled back in time and lived this other life, but in modern times she is in a deep coma. Which the doctors think is caused by repressing her feelings, and that all her nice mature 'it's OK for my friend to be picked not me' has led to this, rather than her just saying 'yes, I do feel a bit jealous and upset, and that's OK.' Which is an interesting modern message!

The ending is saccharine and unrealistic, but it's Jacqueline Wilson, and particularly if you view it through the lens of a story of Evie's imagining, rather than a true time travel story, is very much in character. And I quite liked Great White Man Charles Dickens singlehandedly saves the day and invents institutions that are Nice To People. show less

Apparently this month is 'read sequels to books I loved years ago' month. It does seem like I'm setting myself up for likely disappointment.

Although I enjoyed this a lot more than the Book of Dust. It is a quick read with clear and engaging characters. Dol is 33 now, the same age as her mother was in The Illustrated Mum. Revisiting the characters as adults generally works well, although I was disappointed in Star. I am surprised Star has made it out and into med school (she was always show more bright, but by year 8 was hanging around having fun with the older lads, and was clearly going to have no support at all from her feckless parents) She is now a doctor in St Andrews with a husband who bores her silly, and she is doing everything she can to distance herself from Marigold and acting like if only people would just do what is convenient to her everything would be fine, so any problems are their own fault. I liked tiny-Star, and grown-up-Star is a bit of a bitch.

There is less Marigold than you would expect in the second half of the book, which is mostly Dol trying to work out who she is and what she wants via a slightly cliched love triangle. Her conclusion that the Bad Boy is sexy but useless, and the Dull Boy is useful but not sexy is very valid (there are more than just two fish in the sea) although I felt a little sorry for Dull Boy (Dull Boy shares many traits with Star, of 'if you'd just go along with my plan for your life you'd be happy', and is clearly an idiot, leaping into a new relationship after his divorce and dragging his daughter into it very rapidly. But he was a sweet idiot who believed in consent and gardening and cooking nice food.)

Possibly the most interesting bits of the book were Dol's fears that she would end up like Marigold, and Dol's jealousy when she saw Marigold having a happy relationship with anyone other than her.

Oh, and Babies Are The Happy Ending. Even unplanned babies when you have no co-parent to bring them up with and no idea who the father is. It is a very modern book of 'you have to work out what is right for you and live your own life' not a 'we are all in a web of co-dependency and of course you have to look after other people'.
show less