Wednesday, 27 June 2012

The Cupcake Club: Emma on Thin Icing by Coco Simon (Children's, 7 years +)


July 2012, Simon and Schuster
160 pages, Paperback
Review copy

Themes: baking club, keeping secrets from friends & family, feeling alone, believing life circumstances will drive friends away, inability to say no, feeling stressed, doing too much at once, babysitting own sibling, prioritising responsibilities, dog walking, spiteful mean girl, ups and downs of having older brothers, truly awesome moments, lots of laughs and tears

Summary from Simon & Schuster
When Mia asks the girls in the club to be junior bridesmaids in her mother's wedding, everyone is super-excited about the idea...especially when they find the perfect dress for the occasion! It's Emma's dream dress, except it's a little more than she expected. And with her mum now out of a job (she's been put on unpaid leave at the library) there's not a lot of room at the Taylor's house for extras. But not wanting to disappoint her friends, Emma decides to take on a few more jobs and chores around the house to help cover the cost. Between babysitting her bratty brother, a dog-walking business, flute practice, the Cupcake Club - and oh yeah, being a typical tween girl - Emma may have bitten off more than she can chew. Can she handle it all?
 
Nayuleska's thoughts.
Each Cupcake Club book addresses a big life issue (or several) which reached in and grabbed my heart. All the guilt, self-blame and despair from Emma as life whirled around her in super speedy mode had me gasping a lot. I did laugh a lot, but I cried a lot too, feeling everything Emma went through. Not even an adult would have coped any better with her troubles, some which she took on unnecessarily. The emotions Emma encounters are easy to relate to. Although it looked as the friends where driven apart for a while, the ending was full of love and compassion and had crying a lot in this 10/10 read.

You can find out more on Coco's website

Suggested read
Make sure you've read the previous two books which start with  Katie and the Cupcake Cure
 
 


2 comments:

serendipity_viv said...

I am quite intrigued by these books! I really want to read one. You can never have enough cup cake books.

Nayuleska said...

What's better is that this isn't solely a recipe book! If you do like cup cake novels, I recommend Semi-Sweet: A Novel of Loe and Cupcakes by Roison Meaney (not for Children). It's a great read about chasing your dream, while dealing with relationship difficulties from both families and friends alike. I've reviewed it here http://bit.ly/QkvhYP