Miss Understood

by James Roy

Lizzie doesn't mean to do the wrong thing . . . she's just misunderstood.

Lizzie has a history of misunderstandings, but the latest one is bad enough to get her expelled from Our Lady of the Sacred Wimple College. So now she's going to be homeschooled.

That's right - from now on her mum will be her teacher. No friends, no playground, nothing but homework. What will Lizzie have to do to prove that she's mature enough to be allowed back to Sacred Wimple? She's prepared to give almost anything a go, but will it end up the same way it usually does - with her being misunderstood all over again?

Miss Understood is a warm, funny and moving story by award-winning author James Roy.

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2012

Reviews

[Nella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seems incomplete. Why is Lizzie/Betty misunderstood? She makes mistakes and she doesn't listen properly.
Dad recognising he has depression doesn't solve the bad review problem; what happens to Derek and does he do anything about strangers coming into their home? Saddened as James Roy can write so beautifully; thankfully he has returned to brilliance with his more recent work

[Suzanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a little cast-adrift by this one - it's an easy, fast read, but you get to the end and sort of feeling like you've missed the conflict/story/point. It's one of those story structures where the central character isn't actually the story focus, which I like, but Lizzie's father is a little hard to feel for and as such I was looking elsewhere for story threads to grab at.
There's also a few misdirections here which felt like strange choices - her neighbours unexplained absence which is treated as something suspicious but never touched on again, her community work at the charity store not really leading anywhere, her expulsion being unresolved, her friend drifting away from her, and the continued hinting towards Marty's problem. The suggestion that a.) he's losing his job or b.) he has cancer or something is difficult to throw off once the real issue comes to light.

I do appreciate that there needs to be more primary-aged literature about depression and how it interacts with the family dynamic, so I'm grateful this has been published - and the voice Lizzie uses is endearing and quite reminiscent of Morris Gleitzman's Ramona from the Blabbermouth books. I think most young girls would find something to empathize with in Lizzie (most young boys having not yet mastered the concept of reading a book with a female protagonist).

A weaker work from a very strong author, but nonetheless a charming and funny read.

[liza’s reads · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book and story itself was pretty good. I read it when I was 11, and I felt I could relate to the school bits, but the ending was horrible. The author opened up so many interesting plot details, but none of them were resolved, instead, there were just two pages explaining the dad had depression. What?? Throughout the entire book, the plot seemed to be unfolding well, until I got to those last few pages, where the ending seemed so incredibly rushed, as if the author didn’t know how to finish the book and resolve all the conflicts he’d thought of, and just decided to talk about depression for a bit. Overall, don’t read this book. The ending was incredibly disappointing and answered none of the questions I had whilst reading it. So many things were left in the air, and it feels incredibly unfinished.

[Riley · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was too easy for me. I kinda had to read it because i got it as a present. The reading strategy i used while reading about 3 quarters of the book was questioning and inferring. Using these reading strategies is good because then it helps me understand the book beter, go into more detail and think more about the book.
The book was really predictable and boring.

[Sienna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it was funny, and it has a meaning. The meaning was don't think that you're worthless when you have depression.
It's about a girl called Lizzie that gets expelled from Our Lady of Sacred Wimple college and gets homeschooled. I rate this 4 stars.

[Eli · Rating 4 out of 5]

childhood favourite that is probably trash 4/5