Fifteen-year-old Lara finds her soulmate. There’s just one problem – he’s her teacher.
Lara's life has changed radically since her father lost his job. As the eldest, Lara tries to keep upbeat, and the one outlet for all her problems is her diary where she can be open about how dire everything is at home, and worse, the fact that she’s being horrifically bullied at school.
And then a shining light comes out of the darkness – the new young and MALE teacher, Mr Jagger. The one person who takes Lara seriously and notices her potential. The one person who is kind to her. The one person who she falls madly and hopelessly in love with. The one person who cannot reciprocate her feelings … can he?
This wasn't a book that I was massively excited for - the premise sounded good enough for me to request it but I wasn't expecting it to blow me away. In that respect, I was surprised - whilst I was not the biggest fan of the diary style writing, it seemed very immature and I'm not a fan of that type of writing - I did actually really enjoy the book. It was extremely well written and the story was so well presented. A lot of people have said that they weren't sure if the relationship between Mr Jagger and Lara was right or wrong and I scoffed at that before I read it, how could a student/teacher relationship ever be right? But I get that conundrum, Mr Jagger genuinely cared about Lara, it definitely showed.
I felt for Lara, she had a difficult life, being bullied for simply being ginger - the bullying was awful to read about and it genuinely maid me feel for Lara. That being said, she wasn't the most sympathetic character - she wrote some pretty awful things in her diary about an overweight classmate of hers that seemed to do very little to her. I didn't get that.
Regarding the ending, I was left a little bit disappointed, but I honestly don't actually know how it could have ended any other way.
Overall, Me and Mr J was a great book which dealt with a difficult topic in a way that made me think. That being said, the writing style disappointed me a little bit. I would still read anything else by the same author.
I felt for Lara, she had a difficult life, being bullied for simply being ginger - the bullying was awful to read about and it genuinely maid me feel for Lara. That being said, she wasn't the most sympathetic character - she wrote some pretty awful things in her diary about an overweight classmate of hers that seemed to do very little to her. I didn't get that.
Regarding the ending, I was left a little bit disappointed, but I honestly don't actually know how it could have ended any other way.
Overall, Me and Mr J was a great book which dealt with a difficult topic in a way that made me think. That being said, the writing style disappointed me a little bit. I would still read anything else by the same author.
Book released 5th March 2015 by Electric Monkey
Book received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review
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