Review for The Worst Girlfriend in the World by Sarra Manning

The Worst Girlfriend in the World by Sarra Manning 
Publisher: Atom
Release: 1st May 2014
Genre: UKYA, Contemporary, Friendship
Source: Received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review





Synopsis:

"My best friend was now my deadliest enemy, the one person I'd hate beyond all measure for the rest of my life . . .

Franny Barker's best friend, Alice, is the worst girlfriend in the world according to the many boys of Merrycliffe-on-Sea. She toys with them, then dumps them. But she'll never dump fashion-obsessed Franny. Nothing and no one can come between them. Not even tousle-haired rock god, Louis Allen, who Franny's been crushing on hard. Until Alice, bored with immature boys and jealous of Franny's new college friends, sets her sights on Louis. Suddenly, best friends are bitter rivals.

Is winning Louis's heart worth more than their friendship? There's only one way for Franny to find out."

Review 
Alice Jenkins is the worst girlfriend in the world. Notoriously known in Merrycliffe-On-Sea as the girl who will happily steal your boyfriend only to dump him the next week Franny is the only girl who stands by her best friend. Sure, Alice has a bad reputation but they’ve been friends since they were in nappies and besides Alice would never do anything to hurt Franny, right? After ups and downs put strain on their friendship the battle lines are firmly drawn when Alice goes after Franny’s long term crush and suddenly the title ‘The Worst Girlfriend in the World’ starts to take on a whole new meaning.

When I first read the synopsis for this book I wasn’t sure if we’d get along. Despite being a diehard Sarra Manning fan books on this subject tend to make me see red but Sarra Manning did a brilliant job of examining the unspoken rivalries between girls and how we masochistically compare ourselves especially to our friends. I loved this story where friendship in all of its glorious highs and devastating lows was the central theme.

As with all Sarra Manning novels the characters were funny, bright and thoroughly British. Franny and her friends were so much fun to read about and although I should have disliked Alice I could always understand her actions and could see why she was Franny’s best friend. The Worst Girlfriend in the World was such a fun read but it also tackles important themes such as growing apart from old friends, mental illness, caretaker teens and finding your place in the world whilst never forgetting your roots.

In a nutshell queen of teen Sarra Manning has delivered another hilarious yet important book about the complex friendships between girls all wrapped up in a coming of age story. I suspect readers will be talking about it and sharing it with their own best friends all summer long.

Event Write Up: Laini Taylor talk and signing at Waterstones Birmingham

On Thursday 1st May Waterstones on Birmingham High Street hosted an evening with Laini Taylor to celebrate the release of Dreams of Gods and Monsters and I was lucky enough to be there. I went with the bestie (Rachel for those of you who don’t know) we’re both huge Laini Taylor fans who fell in love with her stunning writing way back when we read early proof copies of Daughter of Smoke and Bone in 2011 so we literally bought the tickets as soon as we heard about the event. We don’t get many YA author signings local to us and so this news was super awesome. This was only our second time meeting an author (our first was John Green) so we were ridiculously excited!

We arrived just before the event started at 7:30pm, we wanted to get there sooner but there was traffic and our food took what felt like forever to arrive in Nandos. Luckily we still managed to get two seats on the second row right behind the lovely Jasprit who it was so great to finally meet! By the time we’d had a quick chat and grabbed a copy of Lips Touch and some bookmarks for signing Laini was ready to come on for a Q&A. I’m just sad that we arrived a little later than planned because I saw a few other bloggers there that I sadly didn’t get a chance to talk to. If there are more events like this one in the future then hopefully next time.

Laini talking

The Q&A part of the event went on for quite a while which was great! We got to hear Laini talk about her involvement with the Daughter of Smoke and Bone movie, how travel has influenced her writing and most interestingly to me how she loves playing with language. Anybody who’s read Laini’s books will tell you she has a beautiful way with words. She also told us that she likes to perfect each scene as she writes. Rather than writing a rough first draft of a book and editing it all later on she likes to edit as she goes.

Afterwards the fans were asked if they had any questions for Laini and my hand went straight up! Mine was the first question called on and I got to ask her if she has any plans to write a spin off series set in the same world as the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series (is it just me or is anybody else craving an Eliza series!?) Unfortunately the books she’s working on at the minute are not but she did say there’s a possibility in the future. Either way she’s working on a few different ideas for a novel right now and I can’t wait to see what she writes next. As a shy person I was quite proud that I struck up the courage to ask my question!

Free goodies!

After the talk Laini and the host went downstairs to get ready for the signing and while we waited we were given tattoos, bookmarks and the most amazing cakes (Zuzana would totally have approved!) They had cake pops that we could take away and blue cupcakes for Karou and orange ones with feathers for Akiva – I had a blue one which was delicious!

Before we knew it it was our turn to meet Laini. We had plenty of time with her to chat and get our books signed without feeling like we were getting rushed along. Laini signed and dedicated my books and we spoke about how awesome books with maps are, how pretty the foiling effect is on her UK covers and how Rach was live texting me her reactions as she read Dreams of Gods and Monsters.

My signed books

After all of that it was 9:00pm so we had to rush off to get our train home. The time absolutely flew by but I had such an amazing time. Laini was such a sweetheart and was a very interesting lady to get to know better. I want to thank Waterstones for giving me the chance to meet one of my favourite authors and for being so helpful and friendly. I’m hoping that they’ll be hosting lots of other amazing events like this one in the future!