Thursday 5 January 2017

What Not to Do If You Turn Invisible by Ross Welford

Synopsis (from Goodreads

Pages: 400
Publisher: Harper Collins Children's Books 
Released: 29th of December 2016 

Turning invisible at will: it’s one way of curing your acne. But far more drastic than 13 year-old Ethel Leatherhead intended when she tried a combination of untested medicines and a sunbed.

It’s fun at first, being invisible. And aided by her friend Boydy, she manages to keep her extraordinary ability secret. Or does she…?

When one day the invisibility fails to wear off, Ethel is thrown into a nightmare of lies and deception as she struggles to keep herself safe, to find the remedy that will make her seen again – and solve the mystery of her own birth…

What I Have to Say 

Another tale of humour and misadventures from Ross Welford, which has a very serious plotline hidden beneath the hi-jinks. I think I liked Time Travelling with a Hamster better, but this was still a really good story. Ethel is an idiot, let's be honest, but then given the chance to turn invisible, can any of us really say that we wouldn't have gone back to try it more times? 

With Time Travelling with a Hamster, what I liked most of it was the way Welford combined the humour of Time Travel and action with the intense plot of grief and mourning. With What Not To Do If You Turn Invisible, I felt that there wasn't enough of this combination. As a mystery rather than a story of grief, it naturally only had a scattering of clues at the start, which made the combination less effective. 

But in the end it was still the combination of the absurd story line of becoming invisible contrasted against the suspense of a young girl trying to work out the mystery of who she is that made it a lovely and exciting read. 


My thanks go to Netgalley and Harper Collins for providing me with this copy for review. 

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