What's up with Jody Barton?

What's up with Jody Barton? by Hayley Long was a real eye-opener. It really makes you think and is written in a hilarious upbeat manner though the content it approaches is really quite serious. I found the way the novel was written a little young for me, I don't really appreciate words being enlarged and put in bold to emphasis them. I get why it's done but for me it gets kinda distracting. I'm putting the description of it on here because it's very hard to talk about this book without giving away it's big secret, that for me made it worth reading.

Me and my sister are twins. She's Jolene and I'm Jody. We've both got brown hair, we're both left-handed and we both have these weirdly long little toes which make us look like long-toed mutants. But apart from that, I'd say we're fairly different. Well, actually, we're a lot different . . . It's hard enough being one half of the world's least identical twins, without both of you falling for the same guy. Jolene's turned flirting into a fine art, but Jody? Not so much. And as if a twinny love triangle wasn't messy enough . . . there's something nobody knows about Jody Barton. Something BIG.

I thought the way Hayley approaches the BIG issue in this book is ingenious and if she hadn't done it in this way, like if I had known what the book was actually about, I probably wouldn't have been interested/or read it. Not that I don't care about the BIG issue and what people have to go through but I just wouldn't have really needed to read a book about it cos I already know. However having read What's up with Jody Barton? I probably would quite happily read a book about a person with the same issue because I realised it's still interesting and the book can still be really good. I suppose that's what you get for wanting to stick with the conventional characters!

Anyway What's up with Jody Barton? was enjoyable but as I said the text annoyed me and I'll give it a 3 out of 5. I can't give it a 4 because I doubt I'll read it again (it's pretty fluffy - very like the Cathy Cassidy books) but it deserves more than a 3 because it is well written and thought out! It's a good book for between 12-16 year olds I think. I was just about too old to really enjoy it.

What's up with Jody Barton? is published by MacMillan Children Books and can be bought (and I do suggest reading it if you get the chance) from Amazon.co.uk for £4.33.

Happy Reading!
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