Going from the title I thought this was going to be along the lines of the Emily story from “Good Girls Don’t”. And her mother is the principal of her secondary school. She knows she should be more like them, like other girls, but she just isn’t. She’s got friends who have issues – and lives that she doesn’t really seem to be fitting in with so well anymore. Lauren is fifteen, and discovering a lot about herself as well as the society around her. She’s got a boyfriend, who seems to be using her for sex. That’s all so much easier … right?” So, What’s It All About? Maybe she should just give in to everything. Her boyfriend thinks she’s crazy and her best friend’s going through something Lauren can’t understand … so when Lauren realises she’s facing every teenage girl’s worst nightmare, she has nowhere to turn. Under it all though, Lauren’s heart is bruised. And obviously said musical is directed by Lauren’s arch nemesis. Here everyone’s expected to be Perfect Young Ladies, it’s even a song in the painfully awful musical they’re putting on this year. But if you were stuck in St Agnes’s, her posh all-girls school, you’d feel like that too. She also knows it’s problematic to say that – what’s wrong with girls? She’s even fancied some in the past. “Here’s what Lauren knows: she’s not like other girls. Definitely worth being tired the next day. For me, it took just one night to finish – three hours of constant tea and swiping to the next page. However, I have a feeling if I buy any more paperbacks/hardbacks without finishing the pile of unread, I’ll never clear it. I downloaded “Like Other Girls” onto my Kindle app, as that’s the easiest way for me to read anything these days in any quick scale of time.

So, when I saw her latest novel “Like Other Girls” was about a teenager from Dublin, but dealt with things like the 8th amendment, questioning sexuality and the obligatory pop culture references, I was hooked.

That’s the thing with the YA fiction genre – when it’s good, it doesn’t matter what age you are.

Through the teen angst years Abi and Emily (of Stereotype and Good Girls Don’t) were my touchstone. Published in 2000 (when she was thirteen!), Dear Diary was my first introduction to a writer who would reoccur throughout my teen and early adult life. Her writing spoke to me at my different ages that I was reading it. I’ve been a fan of Claire Hennessy since my early teens.

Nothing tastes as good claire hennessy