Tuesday 5 June 2012

Dear Dylan


Dear Dylan by Siobhan Curham
Paperback, 288 pages

Published April 2nd 2012 by Electric Monkey

My shelves:
 arc-or-review, abuse, books-i-own, cover-appeal, read-in-2012, realistic-fiction, title-appeal, young-adult
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:
A first crush. An unexpected friendship. A dream come true. Dear Dylan! Thanks so much for your email and I'm sorry about my last one when I said I love you. I hope you don't think I'm a weirdo mentalist?!!! It's just that I was watching Oprah yesterday and she said we should all say we love each other a whole lot more. Not to everyone of course. There's no way I'd tell my scummy step-dad that I love him because that would be lying. But the thing is, sometimes when I watch you on TV, I feel as if you're talking just to me and it makes me feel less alone. I know you probably get loads and loads of fan mail but I wanted to ask you - could we be e-mates? Yours hopefully, Georgie xxx.
My thanks go to Electric Monkey/Egmont for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

I picked this book up as I really like both the cover and the title - they're simple and fun. I also thought that this book would simply be a fun set of e-mails from a teenage girl to her crush, Dylan. It  turned out that this was a fun book thanks to our main character, Georgie, but it also had quite a serious undertone too.


When Georgie contacts Dylan, a gorgeous, popular young actor, she is surprised when she actually gets personal replies. As it turns out, it's not actually Dylan that is replying to Georgie, but instead it his his mother, a woman called Nan. I think that it could be quite a challenge for a writer to portray an online relationship between a young teenager and an adult, but Curham didn't do a bad job at all. This is fiction, but I think it was quite realistic, with both characters having their hesitations regarding an online friendship. It was interesting to see how Georgie and Nan's relationship flourished throughout the book. I found myself very glad that they had each other as they both helped each other to find some happiness and to improve their lives - it was really quite touching. I thought that the format that this book was written in was a very good idea. As well as being modern, the e-mails exchanged were frank, open and honest with the personality of both Georgie and Nan shining through.


Georgie was a wonderful, bright character. Though her actions could be a little cringe-inducing at times, she was quite humorous and this book will guarantee at least a couple of laughs! She is stumbling through her teenage years and gaining new experiences, sharing them with us on her way. Georgie does seem like a bubbly, quite confident girl from the outset, but she has a lot of problems at home, including an abusive step-father and trying to discover what her father was really like when he was alive. Though maybe not as complicated, Nan is also coming to terms with the loss of her husband and her grief. Though there was a big age gap between the two, there was a definite connection which was lovely to read about.


For all those who like a little bit of romance in there book, that is covered for you, with Georgie falling for a male friend - though there wasn't all that much detail on their emotional connection, you could still sense it and it was sweet. If you like drama, there's some childlike bitchiness between Georgia and her friends, which makes for quite funny reading and gave me some desire to shout out 'Go on, Georgie!'.   


If you like Georgia Nicolson, you'll most likely warm to Georgie (they even have similar names!) - Georgie and the whole tone of Dear Dylan definitely has the same vibe as The Confessions of Georgia Nicolson (Angus, Thongs etc.) books so I  wouldn't hesitate to recommend this to any fans of Louise Rennison - this is probably the next best thing. This is a great book to pick up when you're in the mood for an easy read, with a little substance but not too much that it weighs story down. I'd quite like to pick up another of Curham's books. 


3 comments:

  1. This book sounds seriously cute! I hope I can find it so I can read it!!
    :D

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  2. Oh I haven't heard of this one before, great review :) I will be looking out for this one in the future :)

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  3. great review, I really cant wait to get round to this one, I'm glad it reminded you of the Georgia Nicholson series as I loved that series whe I was younger :)

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