I Made Lattes for a Love God (Wendy Harmer, A&U)

Fifteen-year-old Elly Pickering’s life just got a whole lot more exciting. Not only is her number-one crush, teen sensation Jake Blake, coming to her hometown to film his latest movie, but Elly’s mum is doing the PR. Elly’s convinced that this is her ticket to an amazing summer job on set—but working in the unglamorous surrounds of the catering van isn’t exactly what she had in mind. Things only get worse when Elly’s best friend gets hired as an extra—will life ever return to normal? This is Australian writer and humourist Wendy Harmer’s second YA novel, and she seems to be carving a place for herself as Australia’s answer to Louise Rennison—fans of the hugely successful ‘Georgia Nicolson’ series are sure to enjoy this similarly light-hearted look at the frustrations of being a teenage girl. But while Harmer has a lively writing style, and obviously enjoys lampooning the peculiarities of modern adolescence—Elly and her friends all use a strangely familiar-sounding site called FacePlace—her characters feel flimsy and clichéd, and Elly’s hyperactive first-person narration quickly becomes more irritating than entertaining. Like a disappointing latte, this is
a book with too much froth and not enough good
stuff underneath.

Carody Culver is a bookseller at Black Cat Books in Brisbane and a PhD student

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews