Withering Tights

Anyone who has read this blog regularly should know that one of my favorite book series is The Confessions of Georgia Nicholson by Louise Rennison.  I get depressed every time I reread it, because it's over.  But the first book in a new companion series came out this summer.  My feelings about it are mixed.

Talulah Casey is off to spend her summer at a performing arts school.  With new friends, more boys than I can remember, and a very real chance that she will be the only one not invited back for the regular term, Talulah is going to have to pick up her game if she wants me to like her more than Cousin Georgia.

Georgia Nicholson is one of my all time favorite literary characters and it is not fair to Talulah for me to compare the two.  But I can't help it.  Both books are funny, but every time I laughed in Withering Tights it was bittersweet because it made me miss Georgia and Dave the Laugh and Jazzy Spazzy and Sven (ah, Sven!).  Eventually, I got over it and was able to really enjoy the story.

Rennison does a great job of capturing the fast friendships formed when a bunch of girls are thrown together in an unfamiliar environment and I loved the mean girl in this book way better than Wet Lindsey from Georgia's story, because she seemed more developed and was a completely different kind of mean girl.  As for the boys... there were a lot of them and I can't decide who I want Talulah to end up with.  Dave the Laugh (the ultimate literary love interest, right up there with Cricket and Marcus) doesn't come into Georgia's story until book two, so I'm sure Rennison will make things a little clearer on the romantic front in the next book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book.  It took a little getting used to, because it wasn't Georgia, but it made me laugh.  Talulah is a little bit more relatable than Georgia.  She's shy, but somehow always ends up the center of attention.  I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this series.