Review: Withering Tights

Withering Tights, by Louise Rennison. The summary:

Tallulah Casey is ready to find her inner artist. And some new mates. And maybe a boy or two or three.

The ticket to achieving these lofty goals? Enrolling in a summer performing arts program, of course. She's bound for the wilds of Yorkshire Dales—eerily similar to the windswept moors of Wuthering Heights. Tallulah expects new friends, less parental interference, and lots of drama. Acting? Tights? Moors? Check, check, check.

What she doesn't expect is feeling like a tiny bat's barging around in her mouth when she has her first snog.

Bestselling author Louise Rennison returns with her trademark wit, a hilarious new cast, and a brand-new cheeky heroine who is poised to discover plenty of opportunities for (mis)adventure!

Here’s the thing: I had really low expectations for this book. The cover is pretty lame, in my opinion, and the summary didn’t really grab my interest overly much. Then I realized that this book was by the same author as the Georgia Nicolson series (e.g. “Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging”), and my hopes were raised a tad. Then I actually started reading the book, and I found out it is freakin’ HILARIOUS. This book made me laugh out loud, which is not something I do often while reading books--smile? yes. giggle? sometimes--but this book had me full-out laughing.

There’s not that much plot, really. Tallulah goes to a performing arts school in rural Yorkshire for the summer, makes some friends, and crushes on some boys. That is essentially all that happens. But the thing is . . . it all happens so hilariously. Tallulah is a riot--it’s this combination of the things she says, what she does, and how she describes it that all come together and make for a really entertaining book. If you’ve read any of the Georgia Nicolson books, you can kinda guess what the humor in this book is like (they’re by the same author, after all), but I liked Tallulah way more than I ever liked Georgia. Georgia just got on my nerves, but Tallulah never did.

The only thing I can see that might turn people off from this book is the full-on British English going on. Seriously, sometimes I had no idea what Tallulah was even saying. She uses a lot of British slang, then there’s the Yorkshire dialect on top of that. But even when I didn’t understand exactly what she meant, I could get the general idea. Usually. Sometimes I just shrugged my shoulders and moved on. But the language added to the atmosphere of the book, and I ended really wanting to go to Yorkshire by the time I finished.

Overall, this is such a funny, entertaining book. The characters are totally likeable and easy to relate to. It’s the first in what I assume is going to be quite a long series, so there’s not a whole lot of plot or development going on, but I didn’t mind. I’m addicted to the series already, and now I have to wait until JUNE for the next book to come out in the U.S.

Rating: 4.5 / 5