My Rereading Challenge Week 1

September 1 – 7 2024

In the first week of my rereading challenge I have finished one library book, started another and read an August purchase. The three books could be described as eclectic, matching my usual reading and blogging habit, although I think there is a tenuous connection between the two I have finished. Anyway, here goes.

Geek Girl : Head Over Heels by Holly Smale

Head Over Heels is the fifth book in the Geek Girl series, all of which I have borrowed from the local library. That’s perhaps quite geeky in itself, or maybe not! Anyway, I am totally hooked on the character of Harriet Manners, the heroine of the series. She has been scouted by a model agency and has become successful against the odds. She has overcome her own shyness and inability to walk in heels (!), the machinations of jealous rivals, run-ins with borderline psychotic fashion designers and the cultural shocks involved in travelling to places like Japan and Russia. Through it all, however, she has retained the same core behaviour, values and thought processes. That to me is the most amazing element of the books. Harriet has never been a caricature, she has never found anything easy and she has been bullied on and off the catwalk because of her perceived oddness. What has changed from Book 1 to Book 5 is her self-reliance as she has found reserves of determination and fight whenever she most needed them.

I have read that Harriet was based on Holly as a child and the main bully, called Alexa in the books, actually received a ‘thank you’ in the dedication of the first book for inspiring the novel! I hope the bully hates seeing Holly’s success. There are definitely parallels with my own school days. Although I was never going to be a model (!), like Harriet I was bullied incessantly at school because I was different. Books, facts and music were my escape from the age of 6 or 7, and I have no doubt that many of the readers of this series, like me, are way past the age group for YA novels, but love the character and the way she has overcome what we perhaps couldn’t.

This particular entry takes Harriet’s story into new territory as she realises, perhaps for the first time, that she can have more control over her modelling and her life. We see her grow and we see her deepen as a character. I think that this book is the best of the five I have read so far, and I am looking forward to seeing how her story ends in the sixth and final book, although I will miss Harriet once that story is over.

The Stories of our Christmas Customs by N.F. Pearson with illustrations by Frank Hampson

Now, I have always been a Christmas fanatic from as early as I can remember. Like Harriet I am very likely to tell you fact after fact about my favourite season of the year! I have written articles about it for the h2g2 online encyclopaedia, taken part in Blogmas twice and present a talk about Christmas to my foreign students every year! You could say I am obsessed with Christmas and you wouldn’t be far wrong. Now, this Ladybird book is one I never owned as a kid, but I am sure I recognised some of the pictures, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I took it out of the school library. The illustrations by Frank Hampson are gorgeous and evocative and the text by N.F. Pearson is superb. Even after all my reading and writing on Christmas I learnt a few new things about the subject. As a piece of social history this book is an absolute find. It cost me more than the 18p cover price (!) but it was worth every penny.

In progress

I am currently reading another library book, Ben Aaronovitch’s Broken Homes from the amazing Rivers of London series. I will be reporting back on that next weekend. Happy reading everyone!