Championing Contemporary YA: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson

The lovely Bee at Dreamcatcher's Lair is hosting Championing Contemporary YA between the 3rd and 10th of June. In her words, "Championing Contemporary YA is a movement in celebration of June as the Contemporary month over at The Contemps."  I'm thrilled to participate in this movement by discussing a few of my favourite contemporary YA books.

Today's Book: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson

In this wildly funny journal of a year in the life of Georgia Nicolson, British author Louise Rennison has perfectly captured the soaring joys and bottomless angst of being a teenager. In the spirit of Bridget Jones's Diary, this fresh, irreverent, and simply hilarious book will leave you laughing out loud. As Georgia would say, it's "Fabbity fab fab!" (Summary and picture are from goodreads.)

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In grade nine, we often had silent reading at the beginning of English class. Nine times out of ten, I brought a Confessions of Georgia Nicolson book to class--often one I'd already read--as did nine out of ten girls in my class. 

We didn't have breaks between most classes, nor were we allowed to carry our schoolbags, so I had to bring my English books to science class. One day, my science teacher saw my book and asked me, dead serious, "What's snogging?"

And that was one of those rare times when all the girls I went to junior high with laughed together, instead of at each other. #YASaves, friends, YA saves.

Junior high was as awkward of an experience for me as it was for everyone else. But, I was so lucky to have a wonderful group of friends, who made even the worst days bearable. We all read this series. We measured any progress with boys by the snogging scale. All boys were given nicknames, much like Dave the Laugh and Robbie the Sex God. We were French immersion students, so it was natural for us to follow Georgia's example and speak in Franglais. 

I can't speak for them, but it's a safe assumption that we all saw ourselves in Georgia like I did (and we quite possibly saw each other the way Georgia sees Jas ;)). Of course, Georgia's a bit exaggerated, but everything feels so dramatic as a fourteen-year-old. Rennison captures that well, and even gives her readers a good-natured way to poke fun at themselves.

Oh, and this book is really funny. Like, really funny. Probably not the best book to bring for silent reading, as I definitely remember some girls (myself included) cracking up as they read it in class.

If I were to teach English to junior high students, I would love to assign these books to them. It's not The Giver, which I read and adored in junior high, but it's a funny, well-written series which united girls who were, more often than not, making life terrible for each other. Also, people who said they hated to read picked up this series by choice, and loved it. What more could an English teacher ask for?

For the record, I never answered my science teacher's question, because a girl I'd had issues with in the past saved me with a smart explanation, that surprisingly wasn't awkward at all. And that was a great moment.