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Being Abigail
Okay. This is it. I am going to kill myself ... After a suicide attempt which comes complete with an online suicide note goes hilariously awry Abigail Carter PhD candidate and owner of a gorgeous little kitten named Cedric finds herself blogging about her everyday life; phone calls from the future mother-in-law from hell, visiting a murderous aunt in prison, being stalked by her ex-boyfriend turned cop and the reappearance of Chastity MacKenzie, the girl responsible for her expulsion from boarding school many years before. And when Chastity makes a play for Samuel, Abigail's fiance of five years, Abigail realises that it is going to take a lot more than keeping a blog to sort this mess out... Dark and occasionally laugh out loud funny, Being Abigail features a truly unforgettable heroine and a reminder that sometimes the best things in life happen when you're on your way somewhere else.
308 pages, Paperback
First published March 16, 2010
1 person is currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Kathryn White
19 books57 followersKathryn White is an author, blogger and bookworm from Adelaide, South Australia. She graduated from Flinders University with a BA (Hons) in English Literature and has worked in a variety of fields, including a stint as a puppeteer. She has been an uncredited extra in two feature films.
Kathryn enjoys writing about young people who do not fit in socially, or who fail to meet the expectations of others.
Kathryn enjoys writing about young people who do not fit in socially, or who fail to meet the expectations of others.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 25, 2017
Another excellent story by Kathryn White! My fourth by this author.
Kathryn White is one of my all time favourite YA authors, her stories never disappoint and this one was no exception. Her writing is filled with warmth, emotion, passion and wit.
Written in blog style gave it a different feel and yet still read as a beautiful, emotional novel.
Hard not to be in Abigail’s corner throughout the book, I loved her character, she was fun and had just a lovely personality and although she acted childish and jealous at times she had reasonable grounds for all her actions. Some of the secondary characters though, could have done with a bit of a slap, if I could have plunged my hand into the book they would have felt the sting of my hand.
Kathryn White truly has the gift of making every character come across believable and well drawn.
I am totally hooked on anything Kathryn White writes. Highly recommended.
Kathryn White is one of my all time favourite YA authors, her stories never disappoint and this one was no exception. Her writing is filled with warmth, emotion, passion and wit.
Written in blog style gave it a different feel and yet still read as a beautiful, emotional novel.
Hard not to be in Abigail’s corner throughout the book, I loved her character, she was fun and had just a lovely personality and although she acted childish and jealous at times she had reasonable grounds for all her actions. Some of the secondary characters though, could have done with a bit of a slap, if I could have plunged my hand into the book they would have felt the sting of my hand.
Kathryn White truly has the gift of making every character come across believable and well drawn.
I am totally hooked on anything Kathryn White writes. Highly recommended.
August 6, 2012
Being Abigail' is the perfect idling read. The opening was fantastic, and as well the final panel of the book. The pacing is very laxed, the writing somewhat mechanical, though humorous in many spots, which happened to be an interesting remedy that allowed the story to grow on me. I mostly enjoyed Abigail's relationship with her possible mother-in-law; since Samuel, Abigail, and Chastity... for different reasons, and at different times, fought the pacing of the story; although a mix of storytelling that really allowed me to get involved in the tale.
Again, the perfect idling read.
Again, the perfect idling read.
November 8, 2011
3.5 stars
This review was first posted @ The Australian Bookshelf
I really enjoyed Being Abigail, a fast-paced, entertaining, chic lit novel written in a blog format. Abigail, the daughter of a rock star, had a turbulent childhood and winds up engaged to Samuel Andrews, eight years older than her and from a wealthy family. They are the perfect compliment to each other. Abigail is irrational, emotionally reactive and creative while Samuel is sensible, calm and in control. He handles her frequent outbursts and accusations of infidelity reasonably well I think.
This is quite an entertaining story about a woman who has a troubled past and trouble trusting people and how she makes sense of a relationship where she has the expectation that he will let her down. There are plenty of interesting characters such as Abigail’s snotty mother in law and the manipulative Chastity who has her eye on Samuel. The author has a way of showing characters with weaknesses and making them highly likeable. Abigail annoyed me sometimes but there was also a part of me that could really relate to her. It was quite entertaining to be taken away with her imagination about what Samuel was thinking and doing when she was not there. It just shows how important simple communication in a relationship is and how assumptions can be made or situations can be misinterpreted when couple’s avoid the big issues in their relationship.
I was surprised to learn that Abigail was studying the Bronte sisters for her PhD thesis as it seems in contrast to her personality throughout the book. It gave her an intelligent edge which made her more likeable.
I enjoyed all the Australian innuendos throughout the story and the author’s familiarity with South Australia. There were some minor editing issues but they did not stray from the flow of the story.
Being Abigail is the debut novel by Australian author, Kathryn White. It is an entertaining novel about the foibles of relationships and a young woman’s path to attaining emotional maturity (or close to it!).
This review was first posted @ The Australian Bookshelf
I really enjoyed Being Abigail, a fast-paced, entertaining, chic lit novel written in a blog format. Abigail, the daughter of a rock star, had a turbulent childhood and winds up engaged to Samuel Andrews, eight years older than her and from a wealthy family. They are the perfect compliment to each other. Abigail is irrational, emotionally reactive and creative while Samuel is sensible, calm and in control. He handles her frequent outbursts and accusations of infidelity reasonably well I think.
This is quite an entertaining story about a woman who has a troubled past and trouble trusting people and how she makes sense of a relationship where she has the expectation that he will let her down. There are plenty of interesting characters such as Abigail’s snotty mother in law and the manipulative Chastity who has her eye on Samuel. The author has a way of showing characters with weaknesses and making them highly likeable. Abigail annoyed me sometimes but there was also a part of me that could really relate to her. It was quite entertaining to be taken away with her imagination about what Samuel was thinking and doing when she was not there. It just shows how important simple communication in a relationship is and how assumptions can be made or situations can be misinterpreted when couple’s avoid the big issues in their relationship.
I was surprised to learn that Abigail was studying the Bronte sisters for her PhD thesis as it seems in contrast to her personality throughout the book. It gave her an intelligent edge which made her more likeable.
I enjoyed all the Australian innuendos throughout the story and the author’s familiarity with South Australia. There were some minor editing issues but they did not stray from the flow of the story.
Being Abigail is the debut novel by Australian author, Kathryn White. It is an entertaining novel about the foibles of relationships and a young woman’s path to attaining emotional maturity (or close to it!).
February 22, 2014
I won this book during the Australia Day Book Giveaway Blog Hop - so to start this review, I should say that it's a book I would almost certainly never have picked up off the shelf normally.
Having said that, it's a lot of fun. Being Abigail is told in the form of a blog, and has been compared to Bridget Jones. I'd also compare it to the Shopaholic books - it's fun chick-lit, with an endearing, but somewhat self-obsessed heroine. Not really my cup of tea, but it does a good job of what it's trying to do. With any book told in the first person, I find that the narrator needs to be someone I want to spend time with, and I must say, I found Abigail quite irritating in several ways - though I also felt that she was not treated entirely fairly by other characters or, occasionally, by the plot.
One highlight of this book was its strong sense of place - Abigail lives in Adelaide, Australia, a city I lived in for three years in my teens, and it really is the city I remember. This was a lot of fun, and speaks to good writing. Another aspect that I enjoyed was the collection of minor characters, who were amusingly subversive of stereotypes - Glad, the pretty, young trophy wife of the minister, who turns out to be surprisingly assertive and sensible; the dope-smoking evangelical Christian neighbours; the cop ex-boyfriend who is neither a best friend nor a villain nor trying to get Abigail into bed, but is just ubiquitous (in the best Adelaide tradition of running into everyone everywhere all the time), and so forth.
(It's probably not the author's fault that I was more interested in the side characters than I was in the heroine!)
Also, I really did enjoy the way the author plays with the Adelaide serial killer cliché.
In conclusion, not really the book for me, but I don't think that's the fault of the book. I can think of several friends of mine who'd really enjoy this. Some of them have even lived in Adelaide...
Having said that, it's a lot of fun. Being Abigail is told in the form of a blog, and has been compared to Bridget Jones. I'd also compare it to the Shopaholic books - it's fun chick-lit, with an endearing, but somewhat self-obsessed heroine. Not really my cup of tea, but it does a good job of what it's trying to do. With any book told in the first person, I find that the narrator needs to be someone I want to spend time with, and I must say, I found Abigail quite irritating in several ways - though I also felt that she was not treated entirely fairly by other characters or, occasionally, by the plot.
One highlight of this book was its strong sense of place - Abigail lives in Adelaide, Australia, a city I lived in for three years in my teens, and it really is the city I remember. This was a lot of fun, and speaks to good writing. Another aspect that I enjoyed was the collection of minor characters, who were amusingly subversive of stereotypes - Glad, the pretty, young trophy wife of the minister, who turns out to be surprisingly assertive and sensible; the dope-smoking evangelical Christian neighbours; the cop ex-boyfriend who is neither a best friend nor a villain nor trying to get Abigail into bed, but is just ubiquitous (in the best Adelaide tradition of running into everyone everywhere all the time), and so forth.
(It's probably not the author's fault that I was more interested in the side characters than I was in the heroine!)
Also, I really did enjoy the way the author plays with the Adelaide serial killer cliché.
In conclusion, not really the book for me, but I don't think that's the fault of the book. I can think of several friends of mine who'd really enjoy this. Some of them have even lived in Adelaide...
August 4, 2012
Review:
Abigail's unique personality was evident from page one, and was a riot of enjoyment every page thereafter. I loved her character, her back-and-forth mood swings, her intelligent, yet crude, language, and the way she approached every situation, from cats and family members, to mortal enemies, etc. I also liked Abigail's relationship with Samuel; they played off of each other flawlessly even though they sometimes seemed like polar opposites. Their dispositions were very realistic and easy-to-relate to, often causing me to shake my head, laugh out loud, or cuss a blue streak right along with them. The book is based on Australian author Kathryn White's blog, and is formatted as a collection of time-ordered blog entries, each delving in to Abigail's thoughts and feelings about her ever-changing state of mind. I enjoyed reading the diary-esque entries which added to the overall tone and made the novel feel more modern. The pacing was not as steady as I am used to, but I felt that it went along with the flow of the plot-line, especially since Abigail herself was unsteady about the future. I always enjoy reading books where I learn new vocabulary, and I definitely got an earful from Being Abigail, particularly her definitions of skank and wanker (not what you'd think...). The only problems I saw were with grammar, and they did not take away from the novel's readability. Overall, well-developed characters, believable scenarios, and a plot full of attitude make this book a worthwhile and fun read!
Rating: On the Run (4/5)
*** I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
Abigail's unique personality was evident from page one, and was a riot of enjoyment every page thereafter. I loved her character, her back-and-forth mood swings, her intelligent, yet crude, language, and the way she approached every situation, from cats and family members, to mortal enemies, etc. I also liked Abigail's relationship with Samuel; they played off of each other flawlessly even though they sometimes seemed like polar opposites. Their dispositions were very realistic and easy-to-relate to, often causing me to shake my head, laugh out loud, or cuss a blue streak right along with them. The book is based on Australian author Kathryn White's blog, and is formatted as a collection of time-ordered blog entries, each delving in to Abigail's thoughts and feelings about her ever-changing state of mind. I enjoyed reading the diary-esque entries which added to the overall tone and made the novel feel more modern. The pacing was not as steady as I am used to, but I felt that it went along with the flow of the plot-line, especially since Abigail herself was unsteady about the future. I always enjoy reading books where I learn new vocabulary, and I definitely got an earful from Being Abigail, particularly her definitions of skank and wanker (not what you'd think...). The only problems I saw were with grammar, and they did not take away from the novel's readability. Overall, well-developed characters, believable scenarios, and a plot full of attitude make this book a worthwhile and fun read!
Rating: On the Run (4/5)
*** I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
January 13, 2013
Being Abigail was a light hearted book which was pleasant to read. It shows the author's whit and local knowledge. It is brutally honest and very much an Australian Novel. If your from Adelaide, or have ever visited you can picture many of the references that the author uses, and put yourself in Abigail's shoes.
March 17, 2013
Very short. Amazingly written and very depressing!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews