REVIEW: Miss Understanding, My Year in Agony

Anya runs an online advice column under the name Miss Understanding, first for her school and then - when the school bans her - on her blog. She also has turmoil of her own. She's had to move away from her private school after her parents' divorce, and she's still coming to terms with the changes in her life and the lives of her family members. She likes a boy who won't commit, another boy likes her too, and there are issues with one of her closest friends. While Anya gives witty and no-holds-barred advice, some of it starts to relate to her own life. And some of the online revelations start causing problems in the real world...

I really enjoyed this book. The way Anya's life and problems were interspersed with problem page questions and answers made it impossible to stop turning pages. Anya's blog and online answers were often very funny, and the advice was interesting (though she did also come across as stuck-up a few times, and occasionally I wondered why this wasn't more of a problem for her at school, even if people didn't know she was Miss Understanding. Either she behaved differently away from the blog, or the students of her new school were amazingly lovely!) Anyway, Anya was an excellent, strong, opinionated character.

The problem page letters covered all kinds of issues and it was easy to imagine the huge variety of people behind them. Just that alone would have made this book good, but the exploration of Anya's own ups and downs, and the way she started to come to terms with her new life, made the book extremely entertaining. Highly recommended to fans of funny, relationship-based books.

Comments

[Amy]

This sounds like a good book.

[Sophie]

This sounds great!

[Jenny]

I really want to read this! Thanks for the review :)