Book info

• Title Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging
• Author Louise Rennison
• Year 1999
• Genre Young Adult

There are six things very wrong with my life: 1. I have one of those under-the-skin spots that will never come to a head but lurk in a red way for the next two years. 2. It is on my nose. 3. I have a three-year-old sister who may have peed somewhere in my room. 4. In fourteen days the summer hols will be over and then it will be back to Stalag 14 and Oberführer Frau Simpson and her bunch of sadistic 'teachers'. 5. I am very ugly and need to go into an ugly home. 6. I went to a party dressed as a stuffed olive.

Thoughts

There are quite a few teenage/young adult books that are on the Big Read list, and normally I indulge in them like a guilty pleasure. This one seemed a little less interesting to me than some of the others. It had all the traditional stuff – parental angst, self-consciousness, endless trouble with boys and friends and boyfriends. But somehow, for me, it seemed to miss the mark.

Perhaps it just didn’t speak to the inner teenager, perhaps it was a different kind of angst to that I was used to (still am sometimes). I’m not sure, because it’s a perfectly serviceable diary-style book, fun with serious edges, stocked full of easily imaginable characters. I wasn’t bothered about reading any more, until I got to the end and saw the cliffhanger. Darn it!

Rating: 3 / 5