As a HUGE fan of Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicholson series, I was so excited to read this, and even more so when I realized that Tallulah Cassey is Georgia's cousin, but I have to say that the book fell a little short of my high hopes and expectations. Tallulah, whose parents seem inexplicably more up-market than Georgia's family, is off to Yorkshire to study dramatic arts for the summer, but it's never really clear why- she doesn't seem to really have any passion for theater, and never takes the program seriously at all. While there, she makes friends, and of course, boyfriends, but I felt her character fell into the "oh I'm SO TALL and SO THIN with SUCH GREEN EYES and SUCH SHINY HAIR, why, I'M A TROLL, and boys will never like me" trap- which is so annoying and overdone and at this point such a ghastly cliche. One of the things that made Rennison's voice so authentic in her other YA books was that Georgia came across as a real girl, and relatable, while Tallulah did not.
It is a shame, because the set-up had a lot of potential, and coming from such a talented author, could have been a great young YA read, but as it was, it was a bit grating, and Tallulah's silliness annoyed rather than enchanted.
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