Lula Does The Hula by Samantha Mackintosh

Lula Does The Hula by Samantha Mackintosh
Buy Lula Does The Hula by Samantha Mackintosh at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Teens
Reviewer: Robert James
Summary: While I found Samantha Macintosh's writing style – particularly the dialogue – occasionally rather irritating, there's a good enough plot here to overlook that.
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 384	Date: June 2011
Publisher: Egmont
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-1405256537
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Talullah Bird, otherwise known as Tatty, Lu, or Lula, has finally been kissed! She has a boyfriend! Frikkly frik! This is exciting! Except there is an evil woman lusting after her boyfriend! Hoooo no! And her dad is weird! Hooo no again! If you think this review is annoying so far with the exclamation marks and strange words, you may want to avoid the book!

I have to confess, I did find the writing style, the words such as frikkly frik, and the fact that everyone was just so hyper, rather off-putting. I'm all for fast moving stories but these people are crazily quick at everything. Lula nearly blinds her sister with pepper spray in the first twelve pages and the next six are spent with everyone shouting at each other rather a lot. From there, things slow down just a tad and get a bit more manageable to follow, and therefore enjoyable.

Oh, speaking of following this book, major bugbear of mine – it's the sequel to another book by Macintosh, Kisses for Lula. Except the front cover doesn't say this, the back cover doesn't mention it, and the Amazon product description has precisely zero information about it being the second book. Why do you do this to me, publishers? I like to start from the beginning and it's hard to do that if I don't know where the beginning is!

So, I'm tackling the book at a slight disadvantage but still picked up on who was who fairly quickly. I think to be honest things were a little bit too crazy for me – I prefer charmingly weird to mad as toast and this is clearly rather far into the mad as toast side of things. That said, I found the Georgia Nicholson diaries rather too relentlessly over the top as well and I know they're hugely popular, so this may well be of far more interest to readers who loved them and are looking for something similar but a bit longer. I will say that I was genuinely intrigued by the plot, as Lula and her boyfriend tried to catch some criminals while she prepared to win a rowing race and had to deal with her family, and thought that the ending was very well handled.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.

Further reading suggestion: For another author writing great comedy for young to mid teens I absolutely love Karen McCombie - Six Words and a Wish is great.

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