Catherine Forde

There is a lot of violence for a book aimed at teenagers. The heroine “Clod” has poor self esteem and an absence of common sense. The narrative descends into pantomime as the reader becomes increasingly enticed into shouting out loud at poor Clod and to tell her that her “most gorgeous guy” is the villain. We are left at the end not knowing the fate of Clod. I wondered if she was deliberately portrayed as an unsympathetic and unattractive character so that we would not become too show more distressed as she reaps the inevitable rewards for her stupidity. show less

This book surprised me by how anxious I was for the fate of the protagonist, the teenage Claudia. The situational irony builds as we realize the new 'boyfriend' is not who or what he claims to be, yet Claudia is unaware of the danger she faces. Her naivety is so breathtaking at times that this reader often wanted to shout out ‘he’s behind you!’

All the way through this book I was stopping and thinking, "Was I this much of an idiot when I was 17?" - usually shortly after wanting to bellow "Wake up, you moron!!" at the unfortunately named 'Clod' (and while we're here, what parent in their right minds goes around calling their child that? It's just asking for them to have Great Big Self Esteem Problems, and appears to have worked alarmingly well in this case).

I found that the villain of the piece was too well telegraphed, whilst show more simultaneously not being enough of a /person/ to me, for the delusion and denial at the centre of it all to be convincing, even factoring in teen hormones and need, and *especially* in these circumstances. Anybody who takes a charming out-of-place stranger with apparently romantic intentions at face value within hours of witnessing a brutal attack, and particularly when that attack is apparently related to organised crime, is clearly not paying attention to their world.

Really.

As for the ending - there's two basic possibilities for what actually happened after the closing scene, and I quite honestly don't care which it was. show less

I have to admit, my heart sank when I received Sugarcoated as my first book to review through the Library Thing review programme as this is really not the kind of thing I would normally read - lets just say that as a guy in his early thirties I am not the target audience - I must have clicked the wrong button!

The story centres around Cloddy, a teenage girl who is overweight and unpopular at school. She spends most of her weekends working for her Dad in the Opticians, until one day there she show more witnesses a violent attack. Then she meets 'the man of her dreams' - two events that will change her life forever.

My first impressions were that this was a debut novel, relatively amateurish chick lit / teenage fiction with pretensions of being dark and edgy. Reading the novel did nothing to change this, other than to note with interest that Forde has actually already carved out a niche for herself with similar titles and has had some previous success in the young adult genre.

It's biggest setback for me was an unsympathetic and unbelievable protagonist. I've taught teenagers for a living, and none of them were ever that gullible, stupid, or unaware of how the world works. It's funny that a book that starts in an Opticians should end with a 'shock ending' that everyone but the main character should see coming without the need for glasses.

Please take my comments about this novel with a pinch of salt or a spoonful of sugar, as I'm really not the person the book is aimed at, and I'm sure that younger readers and fans of the genre would enjoy it. It's a reasonably fast-paced thriller, and will no doubt appeal to the target market. show less