Being Me by Adele Vialli by Pete Kalu

Synopsis (from Goodreads)

Pages: 229

Publisher: Hope Road

Released: 15th of October 2015

The teenage years! A time when you didn’t have all these responsibilities, when your future shone brightly before you, the world full of opportunity!

Who are we trying to kid? Being a teen is hard. Even when you’re a star on your school’s soccer team, are a good student, and have a boyfriend, there are plenty of ways that being a teen—to speak bluntly—sucks. 

What I Have to Say 

Although this book is a good impression of teenage life, anger and friendships, I have to say it made very little impression on me. The teen voice could well be very accurate for a younger teenager. But it just annoyed me. I'm used to reading books about teenagers who seem more intelligent than the girl in this is and so are most of the people reading Young Adult literature. I feel that if there's one thing to know about writing for young adults, it is that they hate feel they're being talked down to. 

The story was okay. The bits about shoplifting were especially interesting to me. I suppose I find the reasons that some teenagers feel the need to shoplift even if they can afford the items intriguing. I think it's important for society in general to be aware that often shoplifting can be a cry for help.

To be completely honest, football completely bores me. Because of this, I didn't enjoy the parts of this book that were about football. But I do think that this book should be applauded for showing girls playing football. I can't think of many other books for teenagers that have girls playing football. So though I didn't like those bits, I think that it was just my personal tastes and that they are definitely a point in favour of this book. 

As I always say in reviews of books I haven't really liked, it's not for me, but it might be for you.