This whole poll thing isn’t really working out is it? So I’ll do something new. I really like reading, which is slightly nerdy, but nerds are awesome. (Live long and prosper.) So I’ll do a weekly book review. Sunday. I’ll do a book review every Sunday. That’s a good idea isn’t it? but then I’ll have to wait until Sunday to do a review. Oh well. I’ll do one book review now, but it will generally be a Sunday thing. Got it everyone? Okay. First book review will be of… A Respectable Girl by Fleur Beale.
This book is so obviously written by a New Zealand author, it’s funny. It’s about a girl called Hannah, who is 15 years old and has grown up in the new township of New Plymouth. Hannah discovers some disturbing secrets about her dead mothers past, and what with the high tensions between the Maori tribes and the new settlers, Hannah flees to England with her twin brother Jamie, and she finds out in the drawing rooms of England, whether she is in fact a respectable girl.
I quite like the character Hannah, because she asks things that she shouldn’t ask, and she doesn’t just accept things, she questions them. She is very rebellious, and she doesn’t really care what the accepted behavior is.
I found this book after reading another one of Fleur Beale’s books, called ‘Juno of Taris’. I will almost definitely review this at some stage, because I loved the book. I actually went into the scary teenager section to get the sequel to ‘Juno of Taris’, and that’s how I came across ‘A Respectable Girl’.
‘A Respectable Girl’ is written in an excellent flow, though it does feel like it should have a page with Part Two written on it, because the story seems to pause when Hannah sets off to England. But all in all, a great book, and I think I will buy myself a copy.