Jelly, by Jo Cotterill: reviewed by Sue Purkiss

This is a thoughtful novel - funny, but with very serious undercurrents - about Angelica, who is known as Jelly (not only because it's short for Angelica). Jelly is the narrator, and just as in class she plays the comedian to deflect attention from her weight, she acts a part for the reader too, often trying to convince us that she really doesn't care about being teased or not being able to wear the kind of clothes her slimmer friends wear - though her hurt does show through. Jo Cotterill handles this very adeptly, using poems which Jelly writes in secret to express her real feelings.

But the poems also play a crucial part in the plot, which of course I won't reveal. But trust me, it's cleverly done.

Jelly's mum is single, slim and pretty, but seems to have bad taste in boyfriends - until she meets Lennon, a musician. Lennon is a lovely character. He is genuinely interested in Jelly, and turns out to be good for both her and her mother - which is actually a delightful surprise: writers often take delight in throwing at their hero or heroine every misfortune they can think of, so when Lennon first appears, you take a deep breath and wait for him to turn out to be deeply unpleasant beneath the charming exterior. But it doesn't happen, and I found this really refreshing: Jo Cotterill is good at upending the reader's expectations.

Jelly is a brilliantly realised character. She's clever, she gets on with people, and she knows how to deflect attention so that she won't be bullied. There are times when it could happen, but she swerves to avoid it: for example, when she's playing football - which she's good at - she gets annoyed with another player and makes a mistake. Will, another player, teases her: "You're like the Hulk, Jelly. He lets his anger get the better of him too." The ball comes at her and she falls awkwardly. Will laughs raucously, and even her friend is smiling. She could get angry, but instead, she deflects: she clowns another fall and says, "Did you see that? I was like a hippo falling off a cliff!" The others laugh, so it's worked: but 'something twinges painfully inside me, but I keep going because they're laughing.'

Even the teachers, to start off with, are amused by her antics. But somehow things start to unravel, and she goes too far and it all goes wrong.

There was one thing that I felt a little puzzled by. Jelly wants to be judged for herself - of course she does, and quite rightly so. But clearly, being overweight makes life difficult for her, and I wondered sometimes why her mother seemed not to see this, buying her doughnuts for treats and so on. A point to discuss - but only one of many: this would be a brilliant book to read with early or pre-teens: a very good read, and one with lots of layers.

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A STORM OF STRAWBERRIES – by Jo Cotterill

Reviewed by JackieMarchant

There’s so much to like about the main character of this book, twelve year old Darby.  She lives for the moment, she dishes out hugs as frequently as she recovers from upsets, she is kind, loving and forgiving.  She loves dancing with her headphones on full-blast and she loves chocolate.  She has a habit of wandering off to try and solve things, even though she knows this exasperates her parents.  But the thing I love best about Darby is that she accepts everyone for who, and what, they are.

Still, it’s very hard for Darby when her big sister Kaydee has a girlfriend over for the weekend.  Kaydee and Darby are close and this newcomer doesn’t like it when Darby barges into Kaydee’s bedroom whenever she feels like it.  And, when it becomes obvious that Kaydee wants to spend time alone with her best friend, Darby finds that hard to bear.

 

Unfortunately, her parents’ strawberry farm is in crisis, due to a weekend of storms that threaten to cause damage enough to seriously impact their livelihood.  This means that Mum and Dad are not so ready to sympathise and Darby’s big brother Olly isn’t much help either –he’s far more interested in the newcomer.  All of this is very muddling and Darby has to do a lot of earphone-dancing to keep ahead of things.

Things come to a head when the high winds threaten to spoil Mum’s annual chocolate egg hunt.  Especially as everyone seems cross with Darby and she can’t quite grasp why – giving away Kaydee’s secret was a complete accident and not really her fault.  As for why Olly is cross, she has no idea.

If only she could tell her family to get a grip, but sometimes it’s difficult to find the right words to express what you want to say.  Especially when you have Down’s syndrome.

This is a book with a real heart – as well as strawberries and chocolate.  What’s not to like?

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A LIBRARY OF LEMONS by JO COTTERILL. Reviewed by John Dougherty

I should start with a declaration of interest: Jo Cotterill is one of my best and dearest friends, and so this review is likely to be a little bit biased. For an accurate rating, I suggest you take the figure I’ll award the book at the end of the review, and half it.

That said, I’d have loved this book no matter who had written it. I warn you, though: when you read it you might need to keep a hanky handy. It’s a very powerful and emotional story, and I found myself shedding proper tears several times.

Calypso, the protagonist, is a strong and likeable character, but there are a lot of things that she doesn’t realise about herself. She’s lonely. She’s a carer. She’s being neglected - both physically and emotionally - by her dad, who is still grief-stricken following the death of her mum five years previously. But things change when unwillingly, accidentally, Calypso makes a friend. Mae is everything that Calypso’s dad is not - warm, in touch with her feelings, genuinely spontaneous, and emotionally present - and as contact with Mae and the rest of her family grows, the protective shell which Calypso has, all unknowingly, built around herself begins to crumble. But still Calypso doesn’t realise how wrong her life has become, until she makes a discovery…

The range of issues covered in the book is enormous - young carers; mental health; emotional disconnection; friendship; bereavement; the list goes on - and in the hands of a less able writer, this could provide us with a catalogue of clichés. But A Library of Lemons is not an ‘issue’ book; it’s a story, a good one, which happens to deal with these issues, but which deals with them so deftly that all we really care about is Calypso’s unfolding: how she uncovers the reality of her broken life, and learns to connect with others, and discovers that the ‘inner strength’ her dad keeps telling her about only matters if you learn to share it.

A Library of Lemons is a brilliant book, heartily recommended for anyone who’s ever felt lonely, or who thinks they may have been, or who has the capacity to empathise with those who have. And for that matter, heartily recommended for everyone else as well.

Oh, and that rating? I give it twelve out of five.

John Dougherty.

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