Books - That Girl
May 2007
Poolbeg Press
Paperback, 216 pages
ISBN 1842232886
Kim’s not the kind of girl who worries too much, but there’s something about her upcoming 16th birthday celebration that’s stressing her out.
Is it her anxiety about mixing friends who haven’t met before? Is that one person after another is dropping out to go to a concert instead? Or the fear that her parents will hover over everyone all night long? Or could it be her confused feelings about her brother’s friend, someone she’s known since she was a kid and who understands her the way very few people do? Is there any place for such a friendship in her life? Shouldn’t her great boyfriend be enough?
Last time she checked, birthday parties were meant to be fun – but this one is looking like a disaster waiting to happen!
“[a] compelling book … [Kim's] confused, conflicting feelings are examined in an honest and witty manner… documents to great effect what it’s like to be a teenager in Ireland today.”
(Mad About Books)
“Angsty story of Kim who is about to turn 16 but is stressing out about her birthday party. Will her friends show up? Will they mix? Will her parents be really embarrassing? Is she in love with her boyfriend or another guy?”
(RTE’s The Afternoon Show – listed as one of the 10 Must Have Books For Your Kids Holiday Suitcase)
“…Kim emerges from this important milestone convinced of her happiness, a state of mind she can “definitely live with”. On the way to this realisation, she has come to new understandings of her mother, her step-father, her brother (a subtly sketched portrait of an over-anxious Leaving Cert student), her boyfriend – and Michael, a long-time acquaintance whom she may, perhaps, be seeing from now on in a new light. Fresh, chatty and undemanding, this should find a place in all girly beach bags this summer.”
(Robert Dunbar, The Irish Times)
“It is the type of storyline that has attracted a legion of younger readers that have enjoyed Claire’s previous outings.”
(Neil Fetherson, Southside People)
