Westleigh book Club

Popcorn
Why speaking up helps: Why Popcorn is a remarkable and fascinating read… The book is a modern novel which explores the life of Andrew, who struggles with anxiety and OCD. The book explores themes of feelings, friends and family also anxiety, panic attack, humour, emotional honesty and bullying. The story opens with Andrew preparing for his picture day and his mom preparing for her first day for a big job. We are introduced to his Grandma (G) who suffers from Alzheimers disease. Afterwards Andrew experiences some events at school which change the course of the whole day. In later chapters, the characters develop and their different personalities is explored in different situations As the story progresses the main character mental heath issues begin to rise. One reason Popcorn is worth reading is the humour of the novel. Unlike other children’s novels, this book mixes humour with serious subjects with the right balance, and makes it more relatable. In addition to this it also explores themes of mental health issues which is important to young people in this day and age. The novel also highlights the importance of speaking up and having a community to support you. Overall Popcorn is a remarkable and outstanding novel. Although the language might be thought provoking, the characters, the adventurous setting and compelling theme makes it a worthwhile read. Overall rating 3.9/5 – A meaningful and enriching novel with powerful themes that make it a rewarding read.

Goodness

Not Going To Plan
The book “not going to plan” is quite an interesting and amazing book to read. It is an ideal book for teens and young adults of this year and age. It explains a lot about what young adults aged from 15 to 16 years old. It teaches a lot about life, friendship and responsibility. The book was written by Tia Fisher and has a very good storyline. One of the main characters is Marine. She is written as a typical 16 year old. She is disobedient, kicks off, vapes and is into art. She is a young girl that doesn’t really fancy going to school. She got expelled from her last school and her last chance to go to a school to finish up her GCSEs. She gets into contact with her former rival from primary school. She starts to regret her options but can’t really do anything bout it. Marine meets and makes new friends that helped her through her journey in her last year in high school. I loved all the characters in this book, at first the book seemed boring, and the structure of the novel was quite unique and weird at first but I got used to it. I love the way she made her friends and how they stuck by her even after all the hardships she faced. The themes includes friendship, courage, responsibility, family, relationship, judgement, social pressure and a sense or taste of freedom. Another main theme is teenage pregnancy. I would recommend the book to any Year 9s to 11s. This is a must read book that portrays the results of some actions that teens do without thinking. Overall this book is inspiring and teaches or rather portrays the life of a basic teenager. This is a 5 out of 5 stars.

Ore