Review: Withering Tights

WITHERING TIGHTS
Louise Rennison
HarperTeen

Tallulah would much rather go to the Performing Arts College for the summer than spend time at camp with her brother, and when she arrives at the college the quirky misfit quickly makes friends with other quirky misfits. She determines that this will be the summer she meets a boy, discovers her artistic talent, and finally grows up.

Set in the UK, there was much of this book I didn't quite understand in terms of terminology and the places the characters talked about. Really though, I think that probably just made this already-funny book that much funnier. This is the start of a new series (and I'm guessing quite a bit longer than the typical 3-book series in YA) and there's not a ton of wrap-up in the end. Enough to close this particular chapter of Tallulah's story in a nice way, but not enough to tie down the loose ends involving certain boys and Tallulah's new friends.

I'm the only person I know who wasn't a fan of the Georgia Nicolson books so I was honestly worried about enjoying this one, but I shouldn't have worried: Tallulah's just as quirky and about a million times more likeable than her older cousin and I found myself rooting for her right away as she dives into a whole new environment and quickly discovers that while her new friends are mega-talented, she isn't quite, though she still loves the Performing Arts College and hopes to stay on beyond the summer. The friendships she develops with her fellow students are sweet and funny, though it was sometimes hard to keep the characters in her group of friends straight in my head. Compared to the rest of the book, her relationships with the boys seemed a bit lackluster and definitely not the best part of the book. For me, that was probably the thing that seemed most like the first Georgia Nicolson book, so I'm sure others will love it much more than I did. I'd definitely recommend this to fans of the author's previous series, but even broader I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a seriously funny book with a really amusing narrator.