Kitty’s keeping secrets. Like how she’s struggling to cope with things at home. And how she can’t stop thinking about the girl with the purpley-red hair… A fun film competition with her friends Sunny and Hannah seems like the perfect distraction. But then Dylan wants to be more than Kitty’s secret. Is Kitty ready to let her two worlds meet or will she risk losing Dylan forever?
Kitty is a gloriously 'real' character. After
calling Dylan for the first time in a fluttery panic/moment of excitement, she
hangs up ‘and then hit[s] herself on the forehead with the phone’ and after speaking
with Dylan face-to-face, she ends up saying she lives in a
completely different part of town than she actually does just so that she can
walk a little while longer with Dylan. The reader will empathise with Kitty at every step of the story - she's not some elaborately-drawn fictional character; she's very believable.
Though her life is far from straightforward (Kitty’s mother is suffering from
MS and hasn’t left her bedroom for weeks and Kitty is developing feelings for a
girl that she’s terrified about her friends discovering), Stainton gives us a
warm and very special portrayal of first love. But set against bitchy girls at
school, Kitty needs to be strong if she’s going to remain true to her feelings.
Luckily for Kitty though, she is flanked by
two fantastic friends: Sunny and Hannah. Sunny’s relentless optimism and drive
to make their school film project a winner is adorable: ‘High concept: car
chase along the prom… Low concept: sitting in car pretending to drive.’ And
Hannah’s obsession with trying to set Kitty up with boys is very funny: ‘You
could do a lot worse… he’s hot and he doesn’t honk of Lynx.’ But bubbling
inside Kitty are feelings far stronger than a desire to win the film
competition – at first, that is. Stainton creates a gorgeous character in Kitty
– self-deprecating, kind and damaged – and as author, Karen McCombie said when
reading the book, you'll be ‘rooting for her all the way!’
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