Keren David

This reminded me a bit of Louise Rennison, although a little darker and less hysterically funny and silly. Lia, the main character, is a bit annoying, and there is something about David's depiction of her that does not ring true to her age. This book is more complex and prone to moralizing than the cover suggests. It is definitely not all about the fun of spending tons of money on designer clothing, which is what the cover led me to believe. If you are looking for teen/chick lit, this is show more probably not for you. show less

"My mother kicked me out one minute after I won eight million pounds."

Well, with an opening line like that, how could I resist? Lia Latimer is sixteen when her first ever lottery ticket - bought for her by her friend Jack as a joke birthday present - wins her the jackpot. The novel follows her through the trials and tribulations of life as a lottery winner, and it's clear that David has done plenty of research to guide Lea's experiences - the psychology, the pitfalls, the management, the show more advice and the opportunities.

Alongside the lottery story there is a good dash of family angst as the Latimers struggle to adjust to Lia's new wealth - particularly her little sister Natasha, who suddenly finds herself in great demand amongst the popular girls at school... Lia must also learn to negotiate her friendships now her life has changed. Does she owe Jack money because he bought her the ticket? Why does her best friend Shaz seem so uncomfortable about the whole thing? And is Raf, her long-time crush, interested in getting to know her for herself, or for her money?

I have to mention one thing that really bugged me about the book, which was the particularly vapid ongoing theme of digging at paranormal romance novels. Lia and her friends are obsessed with them, and it's unclear whether David is merely acknowledging the genre's popularity or outright mocking it. Would a sixteen year-old girl (and her peers at school) really be entertaining the possibility that her tall, dark and handsome boy toy is a vampire/werewolf/fallen angel? Those parts made me cringe, I have to say.

That aside, however, I liked it. It definitely made me stop to consider the realities of suddenly being wealthier than you've ever imagined. Lia, a rather immature sixteen in many ways, makes many blunders in the early days: telling too many people, throwing too much money around, getting carried away buying gifts and hailing taxis just because she can. Throughout the novel she has to learn to manage her winnings and discovers what she can do with a little help and some good advice. David doesn't go down the 'money is the root of all evil' path, but she does encourage her readers to think about what having money means - how it can corrupt but also aid, how it can be a social catalyst or an embarrassment, how it can be used wisely or frittered away. A fun, interesting and unusual read - and hey, if I ever DO win the lottery, at least I'll know what not to do! show less

Sequel to "When I was Joe" and what a sequel! For someone who has only written 2 books, David's work is brilliant. A gripping and suspenseful novel that keeps it as "real" as possible by delving deeply into the mind of the main character Ty who has made a mistake and is now trying to live with it. The book opens with the horrible scene of him returning from a run at the beach to discover that his mother's ex-boyfriend has been shot dead by the thugs who are after HIM. He is whisked away from show more the police by his practical aunt to stay with his "other" grandparents, the parents of a father he has never known. This leads to more discoveries about his past and while he is beating himself up for not telling the whole truth about the knife attack in the first book, ALL the adults around him are also guilty of not telling him the truth either. As the action hots up and Ty finds himself on the run again and again, the reader's heart aches for him to find at least ONE adult who will tell him what happened in the past and help him face his future. I was very glad that the author took the reader with Ty as he faced cross-examination and being charged with possession of a weapon, etc as he (and the reader) are made to face the REALITY of knife culture - what can happen to you when you make certain choices. So often books like this from the UK gloss over the practicalities of what happens AFTER the baddy has been caught or the semi-goody confesses. Great stuff and one I could not put down although at times it was so gut-wrenching. Brilliant!!! show less

So many kids' books contemplate what would happen if we really could change our lives. What if I'm secretly a princess or a fairy queen, what if I could be an astronaut or an adventurer? What if I could be the most popular kid in school?

WHEN I WAS JOE by Keren David takes this common premise and twists it to create a thriller of a teen novel: a child's dream and nightmare rolled into one. Ty goes into the witness protection program to become Joe. He gets a new look, money for stylish show more clothes, even colored contacts. He's pushed back a grade at his cushy school, so he's head of the class, tall, muscular, and the boy every girl wants. Except he still carries a knife, sees the blood over and over again in his mind, and quickly discovers "the gangsters will stop at nothing to silence him."

Is your heart racing yet? Mine sure was!

Every chapter of WHEN I WAS JOE ends on a cliffhanger, so I tore my way through the book, stopping only to check how many pages I had left (thankfully JOE's over 300! Thankfully there's a sequel coming out this year!).

Besides its killer premise, Keren populates her novel with remarkably real people. Ty/Joe is a typical 14-year-old boy: sexually charged, making dumb mistakes, utterly focused on his image above everything else. Yet the reader can also see into his heart and feel his fear. I laughed my ass off and cheered for Ty the whole way through. The characters who surround Ty are equally well-developed: his poor Mum goes through her own devastating transformation in the witness protection program, his coach is a driven athlete competing for a spot in the paralympics, her younger sister, shy, hidden Claire, is hiding a dangerous secret of her own. I even loved Ashley, the mean girl Joe initially falls for--how true to real life she was!

And I loved Keren's East London setting. At the beginning of the novel, Ty and his mum live above a newsagent who shares man-to-man advice with him and teaches him Urdu. He learns Turkish from the nearby kebab shop, Polish from a hotel worker. Keren perfectly captures the thrill of a multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic neighborhood. And her characters reflect this as well. It never felt like a set of boxes to be ticked (Indian, check, wheelchair-user, check), only real life. If only more authors would celebrate diversity like this. show less