Can anyone remember this book?

TabithaTiger · 2023-09-16T10:40:52+00:00

A book I read as a teenager randomly popped into my thoughts this morning and it's driving me mad that I can't remember what it was called. It was about a teenage girl. I remember a lot of stuff about clothes and her family not being able to afford the latest fashions or holidays to Majorca like some of her school friends. I think there was a French exchange, a caravan holiday and I'm pretty sure she met some boy at a hotel bedroom that you could rent by the hour (!?!) I would have been 12/13 when I read it, so mid 80's. Does anyone remember it?

Latenightreader · 30/09/2023 19:57

I wonder whether it could be an early Jacqueline Wilson (pre superstardom). I read a few in the early 90s and your description sounded vaguely familiar- they were really rather gritty.

ProvisionsOnTheDock · 30/09/2023 20:01

It also sounds like it could be an early Jacqueline Wilson book to me, but I don't remember reading any with those specific details in.

SisterMichaelsHabit · 30/09/2023 20:04

I thought the same, and quite a lot of her 80s early works are out of print now so there's limited info about them online. Almost everything pre-Tracy Beaker (1991), in fact.

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TabithaTiger · 30/09/2023 20:14

I'd forgotten about this thread, thank you for the replies. Off to search Jacqueline Wilson. It's been driving me mad!

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GlitchStitch · 30/09/2023 20:15

The Writing on the Wall by Lynn Reid Banks had a teenage girl who had a trip away with a boy but I think that was Holland not France. Came out in the early 80s though.

Latenightreader · 30/09/2023 22:16

For Jacqueline Wilson maybe Nobody’s Perfect or Waiting for the Sky to Fall? I have both but they have been packed away for 18 months so can’t check…

(I do love a book identification puzzle)

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TabithaTiger · 01/10/2023 07:37

@Latenightreader well funnily enough, after pp said Jacqueline Wilson, I found a list of all her books online and those two titles jumped out at me. I can't find much description of them though.

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ProvisionsOnTheDock · 01/10/2023 07:47

I don't think it's Waiting for the Sky to Fall, I read that one loads as a teenager. It is about a girl from a not very well off family but none of the other details from the OP feature. In this book, her twin brother died when they were kids after falling out a tree, and she has two sisters. She meets a posh boy from boarding school and they meet up in secret, including going to a cafe for jam tarts and shagging in a graveyard. Posh boy is called Simon I think but I don't remember the girl's name. I think she attempts suicide when he dumps her. 80s JW was dark!

Latenightreader · 01/10/2023 20:18

@ProvisionsOnTheDock Thank you - I couldn’t remember it very well just the dark themes (the graveyard and how she’s convinced he loves her but it is so painfully obvious he’s just using her). I bought a batch of early JW books a few years ago after half remembering This Girl (the lesbian ending completely passed me by in my youth) but I’ve only read most of them once.

ShermansSherberts · 06/10/2023 19:03

ProvisionsOnTheDock · 01/10/2023 07:47

I don't think it's Waiting for the Sky to Fall, I read that one loads as a teenager. It is about a girl from a not very well off family but none of the other details from the OP feature. In this book, her twin brother died when they were kids after falling out a tree, and she has two sisters. She meets a posh boy from boarding school and they meet up in secret, including going to a cafe for jam tarts and shagging in a graveyard. Posh boy is called Simon I think but I don't remember the girl's name. I think she attempts suicide when he dumps her. 80s JW was dark!

I know that book by JW, and it's called Falling Apart. Waiting for the Sky to Fall also by JW was about a very academically high achieving school girl who is worried she had messed up her o levels. Her parents are poor, her overbearing father runs a corner shop. The girl named Katherine meets a boy in the summer after her o levels, and develops a romance but has to hide it from her strict father.

ShermansSherberts · 06/10/2023 19:05

I think the book you are looking for might be French Letters : The Lives and loves of Maxine Harrison? I could be wrong but it reminds me of this. I can't for the life of me remember the authour!

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TabithaTiger · 08/10/2023 17:32

Well, I've been down a rabbit hole, searching for Jacqueline Wilson books. I don't think any of the ones that have been named are the one I was thinking of, but they all seem familiar and a similar style, so I think it may have been JW. I read so many books in my early teens, they all blur into one. It's driving me mad though, I've even had my poor Dad up in the loft to see if my old books were up there (they're not).

I've remembered a bit more, the main character was jealous of a girl at school who wore a pencil skirt and had a suntan from a holiday in Majorca. The french friend comes to stay and they go on a caravan holiday as a family. Mum is horrified as the french girl wears a string bikini! (There was a drawing showing the bikini). It rains all week, they spend all their time in a cafe and get off with some boys!

Why can I remember this but forget what I did yesterday?!

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TabithaTiger · 08/10/2023 17:37

ShermansSherberts · 06/10/2023 19:05

I think the book you are looking for might be French Letters : The Lives and loves of Maxine Harrison? I could be wrong but it reminds me of this. I can't for the life of me remember the authour!

This one sounds really familiar but the description online is so vague I can't work it out. I've just found it on Amazon for £4 so I've ordered it. Will report back.

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beetr00 · 08/10/2023 17:43

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780704349032/French-Letters-Lives-Loves-Miss-0704349035/plp

French Letters : The Lives and loves of Maxine Harrison

Synopsis

A humorous story which follows the lives of two friends, now separated by 203 miles, via their correspondence, and focuses on the mayhem that ensues when one of them gets a handsome French penfriend.

MankyMinge · 08/10/2023 19:54

@TabithaTiger the string bikini and French holiday rings a bell of a book called Diary of a Teenage Health Freak and it's sequel I'm a Health Freak too! In the sequel the sister or the hypochondriac 90s answer to Adrian Mole goes on a holiday with a French exchange student who wears a tiny string bikini that " looks like 3 mouse droppings " and her mother is horrified!

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TabithaTiger · 09/10/2023 07:16

MankyMinge · 08/10/2023 19:54

@TabithaTiger the string bikini and French holiday rings a bell of a book called Diary of a Teenage Health Freak and it's sequel I'm a Health Freak too! In the sequel the sister or the hypochondriac 90s answer to Adrian Mole goes on a holiday with a French exchange student who wears a tiny string bikini that " looks like 3 mouse droppings " and her mother is horrified!

Omg yes, that's it! You're amazing, I can't believe you got it from my vague description 🤣

Thank you so much 😊

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