The Chocolate Box Girls: Marshmallow Skye by Cathy Cassidy
| The Chocolate Box Girls: Marshmallow Skye by Cathy Cassidy | |
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| Category: Confident Readers | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: It's not easy when you're the quieter twin to be your own person and sometimes you have to stand up for what yo believe in. Highly recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 304 | Date: September 2011 |
| Publisher: Puffin | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0141384801 | |
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It doesn't seem like a year since I first met the Tanberry sisters in Cherry Crush because they're all very fresh in my mind. The five girls – four of them are called Tanberry and Cherry is their step-sister – are all just preteen or in their early teens, with Honey as the oldest and Coco as the youngest. Honey is still not coping with the fact that her father has left – and is now living in Australia – or with the arrival of Paddy and Cherry. On occasions she's not just difficult – she's dreadful.
Marshmallow Skye concentrates on one of the identical twins. Skye and Summer aren't as close as they used to be and Skye finds this painful, particularly as her views and wishes seem to be overlooked in favour of what Summer wants. Summer is vivacious and outgoing, with a love of ballet and she doesn't like what she thinks of as Skye's obsession with the past and particularly with a girl who used to live in their house. The distance between herself and Skye is bad but she's also finding that she's drifting away from her best friend, Millie. Boys and makeup and fashion seem to occupy Millie's mind and Skye struggles to find the subjects interesting.
The book is beautifully written – well it would be: it's Cathy Cassidy – and the pages turn very easily. I'm many times the target age for the book, but I enjoyed it for the simple reason that a good book is a good book no matter what age group it's written for. Skye tells us her story in her own words and it's going to be immediately accessible to girls in the tweens and early teens. She's going through that stage when it's not about pressure to be sexually active, but not really being that ready to think about having boyfriends or being fashionable. It's about the pressure to conform when you really want to be your own person.
There's an added complication for Skye because she's a twin and people assume that they are the same. Even Summer fails to appreciate that Skye has her own preferences and expects that she will fit in with Summer's views. If Summer wants a birthday party then obviously Skye will want one too. Perhaps the most difficult point for Skye is that Summer dislikes her interest in the past and in consequence Skye can't tell her just how much she is being affected by the story of the girl who used to live in the house. Skye feels an isolation that will be understood by many girls of this age.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag – I just wish that I didn't have to wait a year to find out what happens next!
You could read this as a standalone book, but you'll get more from it if you've read Cherry Crush first. If you read them in the wrong order you'll find that you know too much about what happens to Cherry.
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