Fabbity Fab Fab: A Review of Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison

Title: Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson
Author: Louise Rennison
Edition: Hardcover (Harper Collins, 2000)
Pages: 247
How I Came By This Book: I picked this up at the library as part of Banned Books Week.

About the Author: Louise Rennison lives in Brighton, the San Francisco of England (apart from the sun, Americans, the Golden Gate Bridge, and earthquakes). Since the success of her one-woman autobiographical show, Stevie Wonder Felt My Face, she has written for many British comedy stars; currently she is a roving reporter and columnist and is working on two more books about Georgia. She has two goldfish, Finn and Bjork, who are her biggest fans. (from the book jacket)

Synopsis: In this wildly funny journal of a year in the life of Georgia Nicolson, British author Louise Rennison has perfectly captured the soaring joys and bottomless angst of being a teenager. In the spirit of Bridget Jones's Diary, this fresh, irreverent, and simply hilarious book will leave you laughing out loud. As Georgia would say, it's "Fabbity fab fab!"

Review: I have a confession to make. I was extremely unpopular in high school. And middle school. Hell, people probably didn't like me in elementary school either. Honestly, it wasn't until college that I really grew into myself and even then I was awkward. Still am, actually. Anyway, my point is, my extreme dislike of Catcher in the Rye led me to decide that I should read Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging as if I were still that awkward teenage girl. I pulled myself out of the "responsible adult" mentality that I'm trying (unsuccessfully) to cultivate in myself and made myself go mentally back in time to the days when I was a pimply, chubby fourteen-year-old girl wearing too much eyeliner and desperately trying to navigate the dangerous waters of high school. As traumatizing as that was, I think it helped me to love this book.

Georgia Nicolson is hilarious. She's a snarky fourteen-year-old with one goal in mind: she's going to land the sex god of her dreams, Robbie Jennings. In the meantime, she's going to fail miserably at everything, make tons of mistakes, and possibly die of embarrassment. I'm not usually a fan of books written like diaries, but Georgia's voice is fun and funny and reminds me a lot of me when I was her age. From the first page I was laughing hysterically and was dying to know what she'd get herself into next.

By making myself think about this book in terms of what my younger self would have thought about it, I found it a lot easier to sympathize with poor Georgia. I loved her cat, Angus, and the relationship that she had with her baby sister, Libby. I also liked her group of friends as I could remember my own clan of compadres in high school and how we all tried so hard to find ourselves despite how uncool our parents were. While I hadn't experienced all the things that Georgia does, I had had similar experiences, both the positives and the negatives. I'm guessing that a lot of girls who read this book, whether they are currently teenagers or not, can identify with the characters and their trials and tribulations.

There were a few things about this book that I didn't absolutely adore but that didn't really take away from my enjoyment of it. The plot of this book was kind of simple: a young girl tries to find love and has mishaps along the way. Apparently this is a ten book series, so maybe things get more complex along the way, what with her father being in New Zealand and all. Also, Georgia can be kind of bitchy, but I remember what I was like in high school and it was pretty much the same story. I think the only thing I wasn't really sure how I felt about was this whole Robbie thing considering that they barely knew each other and rarely interacted throughout the entire book. Still, I know what it's like to pine after someone you don't really know. We've all had those insane teenage crushes that we swore were true love, so I can kind of forgive Rennison for that.

In the end, it's the humor that really makes this book so great. Rennison is a really funny writer and I'm looking forward to reading some more of the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series. Georgia's voice is pretty true-to-life in that angsty teenager way and makes this book so much more interesting to read.

I'm giving Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging 4.5 out of 5 Gabriels.

-Gabe