Manny Rayner's book reviews

Oh dear. I thought that Dominique de Saint Mars could do no wrong, but this book was a disappointment. Lili is going off to summer camp, and she's all nervous and angsty about it - it's the first time she's gone anywhere on her own. However, we've already had one episode at summer camp, where Max has to confront his bed-wetting problem, and that was a while back. Lili's older than Max and terribly protective of her little brother, so how come he's gone before her? That doesn't make sense. Is it a flashback? I'd appreciate one of those informative footnotes she's usually so free with, but not a word of explanation.

Anyway, it doesn't seem like a flashback. The girls are old enough to be dressing provocatively in crop tops and spending most of their time thinking about boys, so that would suggest it's late in the chronology. One of Lili's two room-mates, in particular, is flirting with every boy in the camp and telling each guy how special he is. She's worried that her parents are about to get divorced. I suppose there's a link, but it isn't made very clear - quite unlike the usual treatment. The other room-mate is nasty and hypersensitive, but is won over by Lili's kindness. She also turns out to have problems at home, having been abandoned by her mother when she was a baby.

At the end of the week, the three girls are the best of friends. Lili even says she'll persuade Mom and Dad to adopt the sex-and-love addict if her parents really are splitting up. Luckily, she doesn't have to go through with this impulsive decision, which I feel would have been embarrassingly vetoed by the sensible Barbara. A narrow escape, but Lili's phenomenally lucky.

Well... presumably the moral is that, when people are aggressive or sexually promiscuous, they're often going through some personal crisis, so try to take that into consideration and be supportive. I totally approve, but somehow it didn't work. Pity.