1. Saturday Girl by Helena Pielichaty
Saturday girl is a book about a 15 year old girl called Suzanne Fish. At the beginning
this book Suzanne looks to be a happy, regular 15 year old who is very involved in
her school work. But it is only until she gets a job at a local hair salon called
snippets, that Suzanne’s ‘perfect’ life turns out not to be so perfect after all.
Saturday Girl is written in the first person, so you do get the feeling that Suzanne is a
real person, especially as what Suzanne is going through is what hundreds of people
go through every day.
What I liked:
I liked the fact that Helena Pielichaty touched on two very serious everyday
problems (bullying, and briefly physical abuse), because most authors either won’t
touch on either or will just touch on one. I also really like the fact that as well as
having some very serious aspects to the book, it also has comical elements to it too. I
do think it’s important to have comical elements in a serious book, so the book itself
doesn’t become too dense and hard to read with pleasure. This book didn’t just tell a
story, to me it taught lessons and made me realise things that things aren’t always as
they seem and that sometimes the people you are the closest to are the people it’s
hardest to open up to for example in Suzanne’s case it was easier to open up to
friends she thought she had grown apart from.
What I didn’t like:
There where very few things I didn’t like about this book, but a fault I did find was
that the blurb is too revealing and makes the story line too obvious. Overall I think
the book was a bit too predictable in many places, but having said that there are
some very small – but still unpredictable moments, for example when Suzanne goes
out with Zoë and Patchouli (Patch), this was unpredictable for me because so far in
the book they had been considered a bad influence and Suzanne appeared to avoid
going out with them.
I would recommend this book to people who like a good quick read that has some
depth and a bit of comedy. This book was enjoyable to read and fun to imagine I was
there at those moments where you just have to laugh! On a scale of one to ten, I
would rate this book at seven and a half. I think that most people will find something
in this book that they can relate to and feel they understand. I personally think this
is a good book and I’m looking forward to reading more of Helena Pielichaty’s
books.