Katy Birchall is currently an Editorial Assistant at Country Life magazine. 'The It Girl' is her first book in a new series about schoolgirl Anna, her labrador Dog, and her dad. It is being marketed as 'clean teen', and for being ideal for fans of Geek Girl and Louise Rennison. Seeing as my daughter loves the former and I love the latter, I was keen to give it a go!Anna's parents are divorced, but are still good friends. Her dad is a journalist and has fallen in love with a famous actress, Helena, who he had to interview. Helena also happens to have a daughter Marianne, who is a socialite and an It Girl, so Helena and Anna's dad are keen for the girls to get along. Will the girls manage to become friends? What will Anna's school friends think of her joining the celebrity world?
On the whole, I rather enjoyed it. It was really funny, and it just so happens that, like Anna, my daughter also loves the Marvel characters (she knows them through all the films though, rather than the graphic novels) and Star Wars, and we also have a yellow labrador who is rather mad. I liked Anna's friends Jess, Danny and Connor, but of course none of us likes a show-off meany bad girl, of which there are many in one's life during school days, and of which there are a couple in this book. This was the part of the story which I thought let it down slightly. It was very predictable where the story was going and what was going to happen - so many school stories focus so much on the bully or the nasty girl. The book just seemed to lose its originality and its humour for quite a few pages.
However, I'd definitely read the next in the series (due out 2016), as I'd love to read more about the wonderful, funny Anna and what happens next in her rather mad world!
