Thursday, 17 May 2012


Jacqueline Wilson, (1999), Girls Out Late
By Melissa Camargo, 2º A E.S.O.
Ellie is best friends with her pretty and skinny friends Nadine and Magda while she isn´t as good looking. In this book, the third in the series, the three of them meet a boy at McDonalds, Russell. For once, a guy is interested in Ellie, rather than her friends. The pair fall in love, and everything is going well, except Ellie is slightly neglecting her friends. When she realises that the concert she was meant to go to with her friends fell on the same date as a dance Russell had wanted them to go, they all get annoyed at her.
Ellie: is shy and self-conscious about her weight. She is surprised when Russell, an older and undoubtedly good looking guy, takes interest in her. She is very artistic, and, in turn, good at art. Her relationship with Anna, her step-mom, is more of a sisterly one, rather than mother to daughter. Eggs, her baby step-brother, is very irritating, and usually makes fun of Ellie. Her Dad is slightly overprotective, and may be the reason she´s so interested in art, as he´s a college art teacher.
Anna: is Ellie´s step-mother, and she´s quite young. She went to art school, where she met Ellie´s dad, and fell in love with him. She had a child, Eggs, with him. She is usually cheerful, even sometimes when looking after Eggs. Even though Ellie´s not her real daughter, she was still worried when Ellie arrived home almost three hours late once, even crying over it.
The themes are romance, friendship, lies and family. The genre is teen fiction.
The part I liked the best was when Ellie met Russell. He´d been drawing her and approached her, asking if she was ´Ellie the elephant´, making Ellie panic and think he was making fun at her, when he´d just seen some scribbles she´d done in the art shop.
Recommendation: I kind of liked this book, albeit not much. I found the characters exaggerated in their reactions at something, action or speech, as well as immature. I disliked Ellie´s point of view, even though, as the main character, she was probably meant to be likeable. This story would be better suited, in my opinion, for 12, or maybe even 13, year olds.

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