Wednesday 23 December 2015

Being Me by Pete Kalu (Young Adult, 9/10E, short 'n' sweet review)

Despite having a pink cover it's not a majorly girl book.
September 2015, 104 pages, Hope Road, Ebook, Review copy
 
Book summary
 Meet Adele Vialli: 14 years old, a star footballer. With an aching heart and an impossible frenemy. She is intelligent, funny and resourceful, yet gets into fights all the time. She finds school boring compared to shoplifting, hanging out with her footballer boyfriend, Marcus from The Silent Striker, and having fun making trouble.

Nayu's thoughts
 I claim being half asleep when I read this: I knew it was in the series of a previous book, The Silent Striker, but somehow I was a little bit dense for most of the book and didn't realise who Marcus was for far too long. When I did realise that, I laughed at myself. I then knew I'd actually read a little bit about Adele before, and now it was nice to fully get into her mind. 

I could sort of understand why she delved into shoplifting – sometimes in the heat of the moment you don't want to be left out out from your so-called friends. Obviously being a thief is not a good career path, as Adele finds out. I felt guilty and sad on her behalf when she had to deal with the consequence of her crime. 

All is not entirely lost, despite her somewhat broken family life which doesn't help matters – she has football to help focus while making sense of the crazy world. Considering the general tone of the book the end wasn't entirely a surprise, even though I hadn't fully guessed it. I'm hoping we can see more of wayward Adele in future books!

Find out more on Paul's website.

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