Stop in the Name of Pants! (Confessions of Georgia Nicolson)
Grade 8&ndash;10&mdash;When Rennison'sAngus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging(HarperCollins, 2000) erupted in the U.S., it seemed hilarious, fresh, and outrageous. Unhappily, nine books into the enterprise, their originality has worn thin and is imitated everywhere. That's not to say that there's not a lot of fun here; no, there's just not enough to justify wading through Georgia's idiosyncratic verbosity. She has the same old problems shopping in the cakeshop of love. Dave the Laugh snogs her in the pond at camp. Her Italian Luurve God's gone to Italy and her mutti chortles at the idea of Georgia visiting him there. Jas and Rosie of the ace gang pause from their own romantic quandaries to join her in the Viking disco hornpipe extravaganza that's as crazy to imagine as it is to dance. And sadly, Angus is run over, all but given up for lost by the vet, but nourished back to health by Georgia's ministrations. This teen runs full force into life and some girls may still be following her into a merry, if confused, time. If you have such stalwarts at your library, then by all means purchase this volume. If not, then eschew it with a firm hand.&mdash;Tina Zubak, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PACopyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.