Chocolate SOS – Sue Limb

When I was sent Chocolate SOS for review I was tempted to ask for someone else to review it for me… it looked a little young and the synopsis wasn’t quite for me. Then I remembered that I wanted to read more out of comfort zone so I thought I’d give it a go. I loved the Georgia Nicholson series and this is hailed as a similar type of thing to that so I gave it a go.

Unfortunately I kind of didn’t mesh with Chocolate SOS. The writing seemed fairly limited, full of simplicity and the pointing out of obvious things. I didn’t get one with the characters, the best being Luke and the story just wasn’t for me, not as a 23 year old girl anyway… though there is a huge however with this book…

The HOWEVER comes from the fact that I know if I picked this book up ten years ago, as a 13 year old girl going through my traumatic teenage years I would have LOVED it. Although I didn’t find it as funny as the Georgia Nicolson series I did find myself laughing out loud at some moments. Luke really did jump out of the pages and danced in front of my eyes, which is why I think I didn’t give up and ask someone else to review for me! Also the ending really surprised me. I expected a huge clichéd ending and it didn’t happen at all and that’s why I would recommend this book, but only to 10-15 year old girls!

I would also recommend the book purely as it is the 6th in the Jess Jordan series… a fact I actually didn’t even realise until I came to writing this blog, I never thought anything was left unexplained and I don’t think I lost any of the story because of this. Though perhaps I would have enjoyed it a little more if I had read the others in the series, I may have had more of a feel for the characters. In this book I only got a feel for new character Luke whereas Jess’ best friend Flora may have had bigger parts in the earlier series and such.

The writing is simplistic, but if it was any more complicated I think younger readers would give up with it. There were parts that annoyed me, like Jess saying “goodness gracious” rather than swearing, which would have been my own, and many others’, reaction at 16 but when I took a step back and thought about the age range that the book is aimed at I did think “yeah, it works, and pretty damn well.”

I don’t think I would continue with the series myself, I think I’m way past the brooding over boys in my class and being jealous of my best friend even though she’s going through crap stage and that really made my enjoyment of Chocolate SOS falter but I think it’s definitely worth the purchase if you’re a young teenage girl or want a gift for one!

Chocolate SOS is the 6th instalment of the bestselling Jess Jordan series. It is published on January 5th by Bloomsbury, along with the previous books in the series which have a new look. Thank you to the publishers for sending me a copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

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