Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison

Just in case you weren't already aware, I want to be British when I grow up. I want the accent, the English-isms, the whole shebang!! A co-worker of mine had bought this book for me last Christmas knowing of my desire to be English, and for this class I finally picked it up and read it. It is a little confusing at times with the British-isms, but there is a glossary in the back of the book for we folks from across the pond. I adored the peek into another culture similar to ours yet different in so many ways.

The book takes place in England (obviously) and is centered around a 14 year old girl named Georgia who is your typical 14 year old girl in many ways. Unfortunately she is absolutely obsessive (to the point of delusion) over boys. This isn't presented as a problem book dealing with delusions and brain problems, that is my own personal review of the book. I would not use this book in the classroom as it has just about nothing teachable in it besides its set up as collections of diary entries. I might recommend it to reluctant readers, but I feel that the British-isms might be overwhelming to students who have a difficult time reading even with the glossary and I would probably be a little embarrassed to admit that I had read the book myself. So the bottom line is I'm torn.

I feel that this book has genuine appeal for students ages 14-16, but it is purely youth smut. Lots of kissing, lots of mentions of sex without any actual sex, lots of make-up and popularity issues, but no real meat and potatoes. Strictly for entertainment purposes. I would also be concerned to recommend it due to the fact that the sequel to the book (there are ten books total) is called "On the Bright Side, Now I'm Dating a Sex God". Although Georgia calls the boy she is mooning over Sex God more often then she says his name, I worry that there may be actual sex in later books, which is hard for me to reconcile with Georgia being only 14 years old. I'm not saying all 14 year olds are innocent, but I am saying I wish they were and I wouldn't want to suggest otherwise with my book recommendations.
Despite these problems I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was like a dose of mental vallium for my over-worked brain.