Book Info

Format

Paperback
624 pages

Author

Joanna Nadin
More books by Joanna Nadin

Author's Website

www.joannanadin.com/pages/main.html

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Suitable for Ages

Featured Books for 14+ readers
Books of the Month - September

Publication date

4th June 2009

ISBN

9780192729217

My Double Life

Joanna Nadin

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Julia Eccleshare's comment:

A double edition of Rachel's first two diaries -

 

My So-Called Life:

A breath of fresh air in teen girls’ fiction and one of the funniest things we’ve read in the Lovereading office this year.  Tipped to be the Adrian Mole for today’s teenage girls, My So-Called Life charts the side-splitting consequences of one girl’s quest to inject more drama into her tragically normal life. It captures brilliantly in laugh-out-loud diary style the angst of any teenager.  A definite rival for bestselling teen novelists Louise Rennison and Sue Limb.  

 

The Life of Riley:

The deepest desires and greatest fantasies of a teenager are hilariously recorded in this no-holds-barred diary. Can Rachel, the author of the diary, find the boy of her dreams? Her search will make parents and teenagers laugh out loud.

Who is Julia Eccleshare ?

Synopsis

I need more tragedy in my life. Why is life never like it is in books? Nothing Jacqueline Wilson ever happens to me: I am not adopted, my mum is not tattooed, I am not likely to move to the middle of a council estate or be put into care. My parents are not alcoholics, drug addicts or closet transvestites. Even my name is pants. In other words, my life is earth-shatteringly NORMAL. This cannot go on. Something deep and life-changing has to happen. This year I shall befriend more exotic and interesting people, learn to drink coffee (tragic heroines do not start the day with Cheerios and lemon barley) and capture the heart of Justin Statham with my vintage clothing and knowledge of all-time great guitar solos. It's time for my so-called life to be brought up to speed. Starting NOW! So begins the tragically normal diary of Rachel Riley. Follow her highs and lows, friendships and relationships ...and meet her completely bonkers family, in this fabulous double edition of her first two diaries, My So-Called Life and The Life of Riley.

About The Author

Joanna Nadin was born in Northampton in 1970. She is a former broadcast journalist and Special Adviser to the Prime Minister, and continues to freelance as a political speechwriter. She has written several award-winning books for younger readers, as well as the bestselling Rachel Riley diaries, and the young adult novel Wonderland. She grew up in Saffron Walden, Essex, home to her alter ego Rachel, and now lives in Bath with her daughter.

Q & A with Joanna Nadin

1.    What inspired you to write your current book?

I started out trying to write a deep and meaningful book about bullying and how torturous it is being a teenager, especially one who is forced to wear M&S clothes to discos. But every time I started to type, I kept hearing the voice of Adrian Mole in my head, and remembered that what I thought was torturous at the time is actually quite funny. Also, it is quite hard to write about Jacqueline Wilsonesque things when you have been brought up in a nice middle-class 1970s estate in a non-broken home and your parents are not drug addicts or transvestites.

So I shamelessly wrote about my own childhood, friends and enemies, and about how tragically dull it is growing up in a market town in Essex when all we wanted to do was live in London and wear black and snog Sting and George Michael (oh how innocent we were in the 80s).

The family is loosely based on my own. Though I stress the word loosely. My mother is not that manic (quite) although my brother is that pedantic. Also my Cornish relatives do not live on Fray Bentos (though my Grandma Nadin, rest her soul, did, along with Viennetta, out-of-date twiglets and Supermousse). The Kylies are entirely fictional, though certain “hard” girls may recognise aspects of themselves, notably the badges for sexual favours. The dog is also fictional, as my mother would not let us have one on grounds of poo and moulting.

2.    Describe it in two lines?

Tragically normal teenager tries to make life less Enid Blyton and more Julie Burchill and in process gets vomiting dog, loses best friend and has uncle called Jesus.

3.    How long did it take you to write?

About three years of pondering then five months of actual writing, whenever I could squeeze a few hours when I wasn’t playing with lego or writing speeches on the shipping industry.

4.    What do you think people will say about this book?

I hope they will say – I know just how she feels! I suspect they will say – thank God I am not that utterly dull and do not have a friend called Thin Kylie.

5.    Did you have an exciting childhood or did you, like Rachel, find yourself bored with normality?

At the time I think I thought it was exciting. Until the age of about 14 or 15 when I discovered John Peel on Radio 1 and realised there was life beyond riding ponies and playing ‘kick can’ and non-stop cricket on our street. That’s when I started wearing black and pretending to be tragic and depressed. I wasn’t but it was compulsory to look very annoyed with life if you wanted to be different in Saffron Walden.

6.    Did you keep a diary? Do you still?

I did. It makes for excruciating reading. And, weirdly, not dissimilar to Rachel’s diary. Here is an extract:

26 October 1985
Have got off with Guy.

7 November 1985
I really like Guy.

8 November 1985
Have decided to chuck Guy. Karen is going to tell him for me at work tomorrow.

9 November 1985
Guy came into Woolworth’s. I told him he had to go and see Karen but Karen and Little Nich chickened out so I had to ask Big Nic who had to ask Alice. She phoned him up when I was babysitting. I totally would have done it myself but the Deans had moved their portable phone.

I don’t keep a diary anymore. Writing Rachel’s is therapy enough!

7.    If you could sneak a peek at anyone’s diary, whose would it be?

Anyone’s as long as I didn’t know them. Sneaking a peek at diaries of friends or boyfriends is always a huge mistake. You will only find out things you don’t want to.

8.    Rachel can be quite naïve. Can you remember any instances of embarrassing naiveté from your own teenage years?

I think my teenage years were an endless succession of embarrassingly naïve incidents. The Karl Marx / Marx Brothers mix-up actually happened. But not until I was 16. Which is utterly shameful.
 
9.    Did you always dream of being a writer or did it happen by accident?

Accident really. What I dreamt of was winning the Grand National or being Babe in Dirty Dancing. But what I was better at (not owning a pony or having any dancing skills) was writing. I have written everything from radio news bulletins to TV scripts for puppet worms to John Prescott’s agony column, and I still write speeches for Ministers. It is much easier than writing for teenagers.

10.    What kind of books were you reading at Rachel’s age?

Judy Blume. We used to read them out loud on the school field together and they provided essential snogging advice. But that was about the limit to teen fiction then so we quickly progressed to Jackie Collins and Danielle Steele.
 
11.    You’ve worked with the prime minister. Was it very exciting?

Absolutely. While typing scripts all day in a sort of cellar underneath Alastair’s office was not entirely glamorous, it is always exciting working to deadlines, as part of the news cycle, whether as a journalist or for the people who are making the news. And walking up to the front door of No 10 every day never lost its appeal. It was a huge privilege to work in such an amazing building and to meet some of the people I did.

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