Stephanie Jane recenzis The Diary of a Late Bloomer de L M L Gil
A quirky YA novel
4 steloj
I don't often choose to read young adult fiction, but there was something about the synopsis of The Diary of a Late Bloomer by L.M.L Gil that really spoke to me so I decided to give the novel a try. I loved the brightly coloured octopus on the book cover too. It turns out that, other than our height, younger me had a lot in common with our socially awkward protagonist, Lo. I could genuinely empathise with her extreme anxiety in social situations and her tendency to blame herself for anything going wrong around her also rang uncomfortably true. I'm totally on board with with her cure-all balm of baking too. There's a lot of food in this novel so I would recommend having snacks on standby before you start reading!
As its title suggests, this novel is written as a series of diary entries. Lo writes about her days …
I don't often choose to read young adult fiction, but there was something about the synopsis of The Diary of a Late Bloomer by L.M.L Gil that really spoke to me so I decided to give the novel a try. I loved the brightly coloured octopus on the book cover too. It turns out that, other than our height, younger me had a lot in common with our socially awkward protagonist, Lo. I could genuinely empathise with her extreme anxiety in social situations and her tendency to blame herself for anything going wrong around her also rang uncomfortably true. I'm totally on board with with her cure-all balm of baking too. There's a lot of food in this novel so I would recommend having snacks on standby before you start reading!
As its title suggests, this novel is written as a series of diary entries. Lo writes about her days over the course of a year, ending each entry with a wonderful Plan Of Attack - three actions she is inspired to take as a result of the day's events. It was interesting to see how Lo's focus gradually changes as the weeks go by. This really is a lovely coming of age novel in which I witnessed her blossom from an incredibly oversensitive worrier to a confident young woman, albeit still an endearingly odd one. The Diary Of A Late Bloomer manages to portray the non-conventional behaviours of outcast teenagers in an authentic and humorous way, but I never feel as though Gil was poking fun at her characters. Instead, I felt a stronger connection with these young people because or their lack of bland normality.
What really made this novel for me was Gil's sharply observed relationships both between the swim team members and within Lo's immediate family. Perhaps the AIM conversations sometimes felt a little too formally worded, but the in-person conversations are beautifully written, full of the hidden information that each character is too repressed to openly reveal about themselves. I happily rooted for Lo all the way through The Diary Of A Late Bloomer and was delighted to have taken a chance on Gil's writing. I think this story would appeal to quirky young adult readers as well as, of course, those of us who've left those years behind but still retain our quirks!