Think Again by Jacqueline Wilson

Just finished it! Such a strange book. The summer camp job storyline was bizarre - felt quite Tracey Beaker! I think it was a bit better edited than Think Again - less obvious mistakes but that's not saying much. Her language is so old fashioned - no 30 year olds talk like that! Sex scenes were uncomfortable again!

Yes! Got it from the library this time based on paying full price for Think Again and it was also crap! No spoilers but suffered a lot of the same problems in introducing lots of new boring characters, unnecessary romance and very little of the characters we actually cared about.

Anyone read picture imperfect?

I saw this half price in The Works today and considered it but from a flick through it looked a bit too forced-inspirational-quirky in tone - am I misjudging?

I used to enjoy JW's young adult books in the 80s (e.g. Waiting For the Sky to Fall, Amber, This Girl - before she hit it big with Tracey Beaker and started writing for younger children/tweens) and was hoping it might be a return to this sort of tone but it didn't look like it.

Oh how is the book?? I forgot about it!! I’m due in hospital next week and came in this board looking for book suggestions, this is it I think!! Was it as good as you hoped??

@MaybeBaby2024 I agree with your assessment. It's a shame, I did expect better. In the 70s and 80s Jacqueline Wilson wrote some brilliant suspense novels for adults as well as some very edgy books for teenagers. I love Tracy Beaker etc but her earlier writing is the best, IMO.

post contains spoilers

Thank you for the thread @Allthatwegotisthispalebluedot i just finished it, I was away when it came out and I wanted to save it for when I could enjoy it at home and was so excited for all the nostalgia! I’m 40 and still love to re read my childhood books (and yearn for the simplicity of the 90s!)

I really wanted to love it but it felt a little rushed and I have far too many questions. Overall I did enjoy seeing what they were up to but unlike the original Girls series I don’t think I’d read it again.

The continuity errors were frustrating, I could have written @MaybeBaby2024 post word for word! Especially about mr windsors predecessor who Ellie really liked, she wasn’t an old woman.

I kept thinking Gary’s name change would be addressed like ‘oh my ex dumped me when she found out I lied about my name being Guy’ or something, I couldn’t work out if it was deliberate or not given both names began with G but was never explained.

I’m most intrigued about Magda and her relationship and why Ellie kept saying she didn’t understand why Chris was the love of her life. He obviously tried to change her and it seems she went back to being the old Magda but we didn’t hear if anything was said about that.

I didn’t get the money thing either as Ellie was supposedly worried about only being on her teachers income now.

I would have liked to have found out why Gary was being like he was, did he have some weird schoolgirl fetish that he wanted to act out or was it just the teacher in him wanting to lecture all the time? I didn’t really get why he’d be so in love with Ellie all of a sudden when he clearly didn’t see her like that in school. Him having a relationship with Magda now she’s grown up would have been more believable.

I wonder if all the loose ends will be explored in another book? 😃

@User478 -spot on!
Omg the cousin plot - such a weak story line!
Why would Russel and his wife go to her party as well?
Yeah the money thing was also quite odd- felt unfinished.

I just finished it and I wasn't the biggest fan tbh.

Spoilers ahead

I think she should have cut:
Most of the party
The weird cousin plot
The Dad's heart attack
Lottie's boyfriend
Dad giving the money (which was never mentioned again, I assumed there was going to be something to spend it on, but no, poor Lottie didn't even get her car!)

I wanted more Magda and Nadine and more Alice and Wendy and Lottie.

I can't imagine that dad or Anna would have been ok about Ellie being with someone who groomed her at school.

(Although, I read love lessons so who knows!)

Guy is a much sexier name than Gary.

I don't think Jacqueline Wilson uses a phone much at all. They also 'called' for a deliveroo as well as all those Ubers.

It would also have been more plausible to have "met" all the throwback characters through a session of fbook stalking as who in their right minds would invite their yr 9 teacher to their birthday party?!

I think Jacqueline Wilson must have had a mega hot art teacher as it's always the art teachers getting some.

I thought the self satisfied 'easter eggs' were a bit blatant.

I saw Jacqueline Wilson at a book festival earlier in the year and I thought she was really engaging and fun. Just googled, she's 78.
I also watched a documentary about Judy Blume, another amazing author tackling subjects no longer taboo.

@SnugglyJumpersMakeItBetter
I never noticed the saddo comments but you are definitely right in how the terms meant to be used! Maybe we noticed these things leads as we read them young?!

That reminds me, her 90's books occasionally had a character who would use the term 'saddo' as if it was an affectionate term for someone feeling low, 'What's wrong my little saddo?' type thing. I don't know about the rest of the UK but where I was from 'saddo' was a deadly insult akin to 'loser', favoured by playground bullies.

Correct me if I'm wrong here guys? I always felt a bit embarrassed for her trying to use a 'relevant' term for the youth of today (yesterday!) but getting it wrong. Maybe the word was used differently elsewhere though?

@toastofthetown ha ha amazing! Who edited this book? I guess jaqueline doesn't really get ubers much - bless her. Also her description of the 'trendy' outfits made me laugh a bit.

Yes there is! I screenshot it to send to my sister (why the lines around are blocked out so no spoilers were sent). I actually found that mistake quite charming in a way. Like she knows people get Ubers from their phones not taxis these days, but doesn’t quite know how it works. It’s something an editor should probably have picked up on.

Was there also a point where Mr Windsor called for an uber?!? Is that a thing, surely you just use the app, or was that another mistake???

I haven't read it but those continuity errors?! Seriously?! That's just painful! I won't bother now, it sounds a bit crap. I was hesitant anyway. I tried the Tracy Beaker ones but only got as far as her working as an antiques dealer or something... I couldn't imagine anything less suited to the character I'd imagined her to be.

I’m another one who is sorry to say I was disappointed by this book.

I found the sex descriptions so cringey and thought the writing was a bit lazy tbh. Very repetitive about the lift and feeding the cat. I don’t think Ellie having an adult daughter really added much to the story either.

I didn’t think Ellie, Nadine & Magda acted like 40 year olds at all. They still seemed like their teenaged selves just playing grownups, or at a stretch, they acted how I would have in my early twenties.

The continuity errors really bugged me too. The description of how Ellie, Magda & Nadine became friends was different to what happened in the original books.

They found out Mr Windsors first name was Guy in Girls Out Late. And yet in Think again his name is Gary and they all say they didn’t know what his name was and tried to guess at school.

In Think Again Ellie also describes her art teacher before Mr Windsor as being an old lady, but in Girls Under Pressure the art teacher is a young woman who goes off on maternity leave and Mr Windsor takes over her job after Christmas.

I found Ellie’s relationship really icky tbh and it made me a little bit uncomfortable. There was no natural build up of attraction and sexual tension between them, it all felt a bit forced and rushed. The time they spend together is very repetitive and gets boring pretty quickly.

It also felt like the relationship Ellie ends up in at the end was a little bit rushed as well. And the character she ends up with was written to be a bit too perfect for her. I can’t relate to characters that are too perfect, they need some flaws to be believable!

I think JW should just stick to what she does best. I adored her books as a child and tween and she does write really well for younger readers. As far as adult books go though, this unfortunately is not one I would recommend.

I haven't read it but dd and I went to hear JW speak last week. I only really know the Hetty Feather series from listening to it in the car when the children were small, and a few other books from dd reading them. I really enjoyed the talk. She is very engaging, and dd got the last question in!

The tickets included a signed copy of "Think Again" each, so one of ours has gone to the school library.

37 and read it last week and really did not enjoy it to be honest.

Just finished this. No spoilers but the ending was so obvious it was painful. And it sort of just ended quite abruptly in the end.
Wanted way more about Magda - i thought she could be a really senior in recruitment / head of sales for a big company and that would be a good plot development. I thought something interesting might happen with her relationship but no. Equally not enough about Nadine's background.
Her main relationship was so weird. I know it was meant to be a bit cringey and creepy but wasn't fun reading.
Just felt like there was loads of setting up for plot lines to take off but nothing really did.
Still didn't hate reading it. Just wanted more!

I was also a bit disappointed... Really nostalgic, very Jacqueline Wilson, and I think Ellie was bang on. I think the book tried do a bit too much. The stalker subplot especially was totally pointless. Ellie's main relationship was boring and repetitive and took up so much space which I'd rather have spent with Nadine and Magda. I know having then see each other as often in their forties as when they were teens is unrealistic, but I really missed them and both their storylines felt unresolved for me. I'd still read Think Again 2 though!

I'd really like a sequel for Love Lessons though. Justice for Prue after all the victim blaming in the original.

Yep, there is one for The Lottie Project and also a reference to The Illustrated Mum. I missed the Lottie Project reference in the earlier book but I do remember Ellie referencing The Suitcase Kid (in Girls Out Late I think) when Russell is talking about spending a week with each of his parents when they split up. As I said, it's probably just me being miserable as I know that most people like it but I just find it a bit cringy 😁

And yep- it's Mr Windsor!

I've read it and I was so disappointed! I was excited in anticipation for this book like you all were and reread the Girls series but this book just didn't really work for me. I liked some parts, and I felt like JW got Ellie's 'voice' spot on again so you could believe it was the same person as in the earlier books, but I agree with @ketzeleh that it felt contrived and the ending was obvious from very early on. I also spotted several continuity errors from the original series (e.g. a fairly major character's name had changed, the way they became friends with Magda was described differently and a few others), which surely shouldn't have been too hard to get right. I personally found the references to other JW books a bit cringy too ("I read a book when I was a kid about..." "Me too, I loved that book!") though in other reviews I've read most people seemed to like this, so maybe just me being a misery! I would have liked to see more of Ellie's family as well as Nadine and Magda as well. I won't say any more In case of spoilers but overall it was a disappointment unfortunately.