Forty-Sixth Review

My fourty-sixth review is What's Up With Jody Barton by Hayley Long.

I bought this book art WHSmiths for £6.99 because I thought Hayley Long was a good author. If not my favourite author. Notice how I said it in past tense.

This book was IMMENSELY AMAZING until page 107 when I realised Hayley had been lying to me. The book up utill then was about a girl called Jody who has a twin sister called Jolene. Jolene's 16-years-old whilst Jody's technically only 4-years-old as she was born on February 29th. Jolene changes boys as often as she changes her earings, whilst Jody's too busy learning algebraic equations. It had really good potential, as one day in their cafe a boy that looks just like River Phoenix walks in, and both girls fall in love with him. It could have been a really good book about how they both try to win him over, with a comedy and romance element. But of course, that was when the Big Secret was revealed. Let's see if you can guess what I'm on about..

I leant forward, brought my lips up to Liam's lips and kissed him.
Just like that.
And, just like that, Liam's eyes flicked open and the next thing I knew there was a burning, burning, burning ring of fire all around my right eye.
Liam Mackie had hit me in the face.
Then he pushed me away from him, leaped up from my bed and said,
'WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?! YOU GAY PIECE OF S***!!'

And that was the end of the enjoyment for me. That totally ruined it. Because not only had it turned out that Jody was a 'he', but in that one last sentence it made it completely unsuitable for a younger audience.

From then on, it was a long, long episode about how Jody John tries to deal with his homosexuality, which only actually happens in the final page. Not that I have anything against that storyline, it's just not what I'd payed £6.99 for. The blurb indicated nothing of the such, and so that completely ruined it. If I'd wanted to buy a book on Homosexuality then I would have bought it. But today all I wanted was Teen Drama. The first 107 pages were brilliant, the next few hundred were okay, but put them together and it was a completely different book. I absolutely hated that change of scenery, as I had to edit in my mind about what I thought Jody looked like, by adding a moustache and monobrow, which was horrible.

So yes, I personally did NOT like this book. You may like it, but maybe borrow it from a library if you're not used to this sort of thing. If this is the sort of book you'd want to read, then I'm not stopping you. I'm just expressing my opinion. I would rate this a 5/10, because I enjoyed the first half, but blatantly not the rest.

Hayley Long really let herself down with this, and so I'm not going to waste my money on her books again untill I've read some reviews. It really was a let down.

AAWAD