Never Ever by Helena Pielichaty

Never Ever by Helena Pielichaty
Buy Never Ever by Helena Pielichaty at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Teens
Reviewer: Zoe Page
Summary: Erin moves house and ends up neighbours with a popular boy who everyone wants to hang out with. She can’t stand him which wouldn’t really matter if he wasn’t so madly in love with her, in this witty, amusing teen lit.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 192	Date: 7 Feb 2008
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 978-0192755254
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Erin's father has gone bankrupt, so she has to give up the plush house in the nice part of town and move instead to a local council estate. She’ll have to share a room with one of her sisters, manage to survive without a phone and try to cope with her new neighbours who aren’t really her kind of people. Liam, one of her classmates, already lives on the estate. In fact his family were there before it started to get a bit dodgy and now don’t feel they should move just because things have gone down hill around them. And, oh yeah, Liam is seriously in love with Erin, but she meanwhile thinks he’s a complete slime ball. Excellent.

As they settle into life on the estate, Erin and her family have to face the good (nice new neighbours who look out for you) and the bad (used syringes in the back garden), but even if she can cope with her new surroundings, will Erin ever cope with the idea of a relationship with Liam?

This is a story told from both sides, with Liam and Erin both narrating alternate chapters. This made for interesting reading, as did the fact that in this instance it was the boy who had a mad crush, and the girl who didn’t want to acknowledge his existence.

The story is lively and funny (usually), and is a light, easy read, but I couldn’t help thinking that 14 was a bit young for the characters, and that given their attitudes and behaviours, I would have pegged them as a little older. Normally I think books appeal to those a bit younger than their main characters’ age, but this one is reasonably risqué (for a teen book) and I think it would probably be for early to mid teens rather than younger readers.

The book started off well, got quite fantastic towards the middle, and ended up back at good by the end (following an unsavoury incident between Liam and Katia). At the same time, I enjoyed the theme of the unlikely friendship, and some of the scenarios used to pad out bits of the story, and to make certain points, were far from typical, and therefore very interesting.

Thank you to the publishers for supplying this book.

If they enjoyed this, they might also enjoy Planet Janet by Dyan Sheldon.

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