FernFolio

When thirteen year-old Pauline Carelli-Bloom wins a school short story-writing prize of Roget’s Thesaurus and You Too Can Write a Great Novel!, she concludes that she is going to grow up to be a writer. As it is the first day of the summer holidays, she decides to waste no time in beginning her first novel and, since Zane, the author of You Too Can Write a Great Novel!, suggests that you write about what you know, Pauline’s book is about herself, her family, her friends, and the curious, funny and, occasionally, sad experiences of growing up.
Pauline writes about her parents, whose divorce starts and ends in the laundry room, about her mother’s string of loser boyfriends, and about her friends Genevieve, a competitive figure skater, Leila, and Rachel, who lives with her fundamentalist grandmother. She ponders over her relationship with Yoshi, the boy she’s known since Grade 1 and with whom she shares a spontaneous kiss in the storeroom at the food bank where they were both volunteering.
Over the course of her novel, Pauline struggles to follow Zane’s tips for novel-writing, sometimes with amusing results. She strives to meet the academic challenges of Mr. Pete, the best teacher she’ll ever have. She is the embarrassing focus of the school gossip mills. She discovers that growing up involves a whole lot of compromise and understanding and forgiveness.
Edeet Ravel’s The Thrilling Life of Pauline de Lammermoor is a charming coming-of-age novel. I look forward to reading the sequel, Pauline de Bovary.
FernFolio Editor