The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things

Another Young Adult book finished - I've been reading more than usual from this genre recently and really enjoying it. It certainly balances out heavier reads like Catch-22!

The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler is a fun, cute read. It tells the story of Virginia, a teenager with 'a larger-than-life body and a medium-sized inferiority complex' as she tries to deal with some typical teenage problems, like boys, and some other issues that are not so typical and really tough to cope with.

By the end of the book Virginia realises a lot of stuff that she didn't before, she learns about herself and gets a lot of insight into how life works. She understands the importance of liking and respecting yourself. I really wish I'd read this sort of stuff when I was a teenager, it took me way longer to learn some of those lessons!

I said something similar when I blogged about Jacquelin Wilson's Girls Under Pressure a couple of days ago, but I'll say it again. I didn't think there would this much value in reading Young Adult literature, but as I'm doing it I'm realising that going back to basics is really worth doing. We get so busy in our adult lives and I'm finding it very beneficial to think about some basic issues again - and I'm finding that some of them are still problematic for me. I just hope that at 31 I'm better equipped to deal with them than I was at 15!

I seem to be very lucky with my books lately, I'm giving many of them 5 stars. This one too, it's a really good way of talking about some serious issues that teens should be exploring.