Mumnesia by Katie Dale (Children's, 9 years +, 10E/10E)

This was part of a blog tour, but I got ill so had to bail out. Still got here eventually!

June 2016, MacMillan Children's Books, 272 pages, Paperback, Review copy 

Summary from PanMacMillan

Lucy's mum is so out of date she's practically mouldy. She's super-strict, overprotective and won't let Lucy go to the Valentine's Ball! Lucy can't believe she was EVER a teenager . . .

Until the morning her mum wakes up with no memory of the last thirty years - and thinks she's twelve years old!

All Lucy wants is for her mum to go back to being her old self - but how?

Nayu's thoughts

As a fan of the film Freaky Friday I was eager to see what Katie did with the amnesia storyline-I wasn't disappointed! How and why Sharon loses her memory involves plot twists that I only half guessed. I was pleased with what happened once her memory returned too. She and Lucy got a lot closer since they both had to help each other with tricky situations.

I nearly didn't give this full marks because what Lucy and Sharon do to Megan is mean, but Lucy does feel a lot of guilt over it, and does her beat to make up for her mistake (eventually). She has so much stuff going on before and during the amnesia that I cut her some slack - afterall, everyone makes mistakes in life, what's important is what we do afterwarda. Lucy has real guts to make her apologies to the characters she hurts. 

I didn't like what she did to her potential stepmum either, but again there's significant guilt for Lucy and she just wanted her life to have some normality. None and all of the book is normal, since normality is a myth! Lucy has to work hard to keep her friendship with Kimmy going, and it's thanks to her mum and an unexpected friend that the two friends make up. While there is a lot of drama and semi-negative situations there is  hilarity and love in all it's forms for this fun read which I'm looking forward to rereading! 

Find out more on Katie's website. 

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