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The Following Girls
When Amanda Baker was 14 she found a letter written by her runaway mother to her unborn 'Dear Jeremy' it began 'or Amanda...'. Now Baker is sixteen and sick of her lot as she moves miserably between lessons, her only solace her fifth form gang – the four Mandies – and a low-calorie diet of king-sized cigarettes. That is, until she teams up with Julia Smith, games captain and consummate game player. And so begins a passionate friendship that will threaten her future, menace her sanity and risk the betrayal of everything and everyone she holds dear.
273 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 13, 2014
About the author
Louise Levene
9 books4 followersLouise Levene is the author of A Vision of Loveliness, a BBC Book at Bedtime, published in May 2010, and in paperback in May 2011. She has been the dance critic of The Sunday Telegraph since 1998 but has also been an advertising copywriter, a window dresser, a radio presenter, an office cleaner, a crossword editor, a college professor and a saleslady. She lives in London with her husband and two children.
Ghastly Business, published by Bloomsbury in July 2011, is a deliciously wicked, witty tale of villainy, scandal, sex and science.
Watch the book trailer for Ghastly Business
Ghastly Business, published by Bloomsbury in July 2011, is a deliciously wicked, witty tale of villainy, scandal, sex and science.
Watch the book trailer for Ghastly Business
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
July 31, 2023
Struggled to finish. What was it about, anyway? So pointless.
February 19, 2026
Brought back lots of memories of going to a girls’ school in the 70s - I laughed out loud and cringed (sometimes simultaneously).
January 25, 2014
I have read this author’s previous two novels and enjoyed both of them. This one is something a bit different. Its heroine – almost an anti-heroine – is Amanda Baker. At the start of the book she is fourteen and goes around with three other girls called Amanda – the Four Mandies. Baker, as she is mainly referred to, is a thorn in the side of her father and step mother and as well as her school teachers. I think the author captures extremely well the way schoolgirls in the nineteen seventies interacted.
Baker’s mother left the family when Baker was three to ‘find herself’ and still sends appropriate and inappropriate gifts to her daughter including, amongst others, a subscription to ‘Spare Rib’. Baker struggles to fit in at school but somehow in spite of her best efforts she always seems to be in trouble and on the verge of expulsion. He father despairs of her and spends all his time sending for brochures for schools which might turn her into the sort of daughter he wants her to be.
I enjoyed reading this book and thought the characters were believable and likeable. I thought the way the friendship between the four girls waxed and waned was convincing. I also liked Pam (Spam) – Baker’s stepmother with her sherry bottle under the sink which she had no problems sharing with Baker herself at times. This book is well written and presents an interesting picture of the life of schoolgirls in the nineteen seventies. There is plenty of humour and some marvellous one-liners which made me look at certain things in life in a different way.
If you like books which fit into several genres but are also in a genre all of their own then you may enjoy Louise Levene’s writing. I received a free copy of this book for review.
Baker’s mother left the family when Baker was three to ‘find herself’ and still sends appropriate and inappropriate gifts to her daughter including, amongst others, a subscription to ‘Spare Rib’. Baker struggles to fit in at school but somehow in spite of her best efforts she always seems to be in trouble and on the verge of expulsion. He father despairs of her and spends all his time sending for brochures for schools which might turn her into the sort of daughter he wants her to be.
I enjoyed reading this book and thought the characters were believable and likeable. I thought the way the friendship between the four girls waxed and waned was convincing. I also liked Pam (Spam) – Baker’s stepmother with her sherry bottle under the sink which she had no problems sharing with Baker herself at times. This book is well written and presents an interesting picture of the life of schoolgirls in the nineteen seventies. There is plenty of humour and some marvellous one-liners which made me look at certain things in life in a different way.
If you like books which fit into several genres but are also in a genre all of their own then you may enjoy Louise Levene’s writing. I received a free copy of this book for review.
February 2, 2014
Unfortunately disappointing, which is a shame. I really loved Louise Levene's A Vision of Loveliness when I read it last year. It took me by surprise and delight and was the predominant reason why I thought I would give this novel a try.
And maybe I missed the point - maybe I don't get it. But to me it is far too late when the real driving plot of the novel doesn't start until you are practically two-thirds of the way through. Therefore whilst the writing was lovely and engaging (and to be honest very nostalgic of my own teenage days in an all girl's school) it came across as unevenly paced and meandering until the narrative finally kicked in.
I'd urge everyone to read A Vision of Loveliness instead.
And maybe I missed the point - maybe I don't get it. But to me it is far too late when the real driving plot of the novel doesn't start until you are practically two-thirds of the way through. Therefore whilst the writing was lovely and engaging (and to be honest very nostalgic of my own teenage days in an all girl's school) it came across as unevenly paced and meandering until the narrative finally kicked in.
I'd urge everyone to read A Vision of Loveliness instead.
February 10, 2014
***RECEIVED FROM FIRST READS GIVEAWAY***
I have never been so pleased to finish a book. I have no clue what the purpose of this story is. Amanda baker is friends with 3 other Amandas. They talk the usual teenage stuff about boys, how they hate their teachers blah blah. It was about page 100 that I realised that nothing really seemed to be happening, the story starts in the middle of the story, then it ends after another 150 or so pages of not a lot really happening except a girl being a misbehaved teenager and getting an ultimatum then it ends. I just could not get into it at all.
I have never been so pleased to finish a book. I have no clue what the purpose of this story is. Amanda baker is friends with 3 other Amandas. They talk the usual teenage stuff about boys, how they hate their teachers blah blah. It was about page 100 that I realised that nothing really seemed to be happening, the story starts in the middle of the story, then it ends after another 150 or so pages of not a lot really happening except a girl being a misbehaved teenager and getting an ultimatum then it ends. I just could not get into it at all.
Read
November 18, 2013DNF - partly because the badly formatted ARC Kindle is missing all combinations of ff, fi, fl and th which I thought I could get used to and really didn't, but also because at 42% in, nothing has happened aside from the girls moaning about their parents, their teachers and school. So I'm not sure it would be keeping me interested even if I didn't have to contend with the eccentric copy.
February 21, 2015
The lives and troubles of four sixteen year old girls called Amanda. It's difficult to describe this book and how it made me feel; more than meh but it wasn't that great. I liked it to a certain degree so it's worth more of a 2.5 star rating.
May 24, 2024
2.5 rounded to 3. There are the elements of an interesting book here but as others have noted it takes AGES to get going with not a lot happening. The last quarter of the book had a lot in it that could have been expanded and explored. So a missed opportunity
May 10, 2017
I had to DNF this one, it was truly awful.
July 29, 2018
I liked this book, but honestly half the time I had no idea what was going on
April 16, 2019
It was okay, quite boring at times and not a great deal happened overall?! Quite anti-climactic, especially given the blurb.
June 2, 2019
Kind of worth reading for the St Trinians/St Clare's nostalgia, and was occasionally quite funny, but other than that nothing much happened.
June 13, 2015
The Following Girls does not refer to girls who follow someone or something. It is instead a very schoolmarmish quote often heard in school classrooms and assemblies, eg - 'Will the following girls please step out of line?' or 'The following girls have been selected for the school play' and so on.
This book is a story about a particular girl's life in an English girls school. Malory towers it is not. For starters it is not residential and for another the students and teachers seem to exist in a perpetual state of war. Our protagonist is called Amanda Baker, aka Baker, and is friends with 3 other girls also named Amanda. The four Mandies are pretty notorious in school and a constant source of pain to their teachers who have been dying to find a reason to expel at least one of them to make an example.
Baker's mother left her with her father when she was but 5 years old and she grew up with him and his new wife. Mr. Baker is utterly conventional and incapable of looking at his daughter without seeing his first wife. He is so caught up in the wrongs that were done to him that he deciphers every action of his daughter as a deliberate attempt to hurt him. At times I felt sad for him, so caught up in conventionality, so afraid of what people might think and at times so angry for failing to love this child of his.
Amanda is an intelligent girl and quite good at her studies. She doesn't commit any great mistakes and I felt great sympathy for her when she is caught wearing the wrong shoes for gym and is terrified that the teachers will inform her father. I mean that is such a pathetic thing to call parents for and an even more pathetic thing for the child to be scared about it. If someone had called my Dad that I was wearing the wrong shoes in school, he would have laughed it off like he did every time the teachers told him that I talked too much in every single school and every single parent-teacher meet he ever went to. He was compensated for that 13 years later when his son started school and every teacher in every school told him he was too quiet.
The actual plot summarized in the blurb only occurs towards the very end. The first three quarters of the story is spent in describing the various characters in the book right from the students to the teachers. It isn't boring or tedious but one does wonder when the 'terrible' event mentioned in the blurb will occur.
It is a sweet book, even if I did not understand the tendency of the Mandies to cause unnecessary disruptions in class by hiding the duster or changing schedules on walls. It is like second nature for them to do so and implies a degree of individuality and freedom in school that is never possible in an Indian school. Reprimands seem to have little or no effect on any of them. The English school slang was a little difficult at times to understand but one gets its fairly easily in the end. Its a story for girls and about girls and, although very different from Enid Blyton, is a nice read. If you have ever studied in an all Girls school, this will revive some pretty nostalgic memories for you.
This book is a story about a particular girl's life in an English girls school. Malory towers it is not. For starters it is not residential and for another the students and teachers seem to exist in a perpetual state of war. Our protagonist is called Amanda Baker, aka Baker, and is friends with 3 other girls also named Amanda. The four Mandies are pretty notorious in school and a constant source of pain to their teachers who have been dying to find a reason to expel at least one of them to make an example.
Baker's mother left her with her father when she was but 5 years old and she grew up with him and his new wife. Mr. Baker is utterly conventional and incapable of looking at his daughter without seeing his first wife. He is so caught up in the wrongs that were done to him that he deciphers every action of his daughter as a deliberate attempt to hurt him. At times I felt sad for him, so caught up in conventionality, so afraid of what people might think and at times so angry for failing to love this child of his.
Amanda is an intelligent girl and quite good at her studies. She doesn't commit any great mistakes and I felt great sympathy for her when she is caught wearing the wrong shoes for gym and is terrified that the teachers will inform her father. I mean that is such a pathetic thing to call parents for and an even more pathetic thing for the child to be scared about it. If someone had called my Dad that I was wearing the wrong shoes in school, he would have laughed it off like he did every time the teachers told him that I talked too much in every single school and every single parent-teacher meet he ever went to. He was compensated for that 13 years later when his son started school and every teacher in every school told him he was too quiet.
The actual plot summarized in the blurb only occurs towards the very end. The first three quarters of the story is spent in describing the various characters in the book right from the students to the teachers. It isn't boring or tedious but one does wonder when the 'terrible' event mentioned in the blurb will occur.
It is a sweet book, even if I did not understand the tendency of the Mandies to cause unnecessary disruptions in class by hiding the duster or changing schedules on walls. It is like second nature for them to do so and implies a degree of individuality and freedom in school that is never possible in an Indian school. Reprimands seem to have little or no effect on any of them. The English school slang was a little difficult at times to understand but one gets its fairly easily in the end. Its a story for girls and about girls and, although very different from Enid Blyton, is a nice read. If you have ever studied in an all Girls school, this will revive some pretty nostalgic memories for you.
February 26, 2016
In The Following Girls, Louise Levene depicts the toils and troubles of being a high school teenager who is expected to conform to conventional standards. She explores the idea of deviance and the consequent disciplining through her protagonist Amanda Baker who doesn’t show great interest in the vision or expectations of her school, Mildred Fawcett. With the other three Mandies, Baker lives on the sidelines, constantly getting reprimanded by not only the faculty but also her father. But when the once hostile Julia Smith lends a hand of friendship, will Baker’s life too take an unexpected turn?
Both the cover page and synopsis are so intriguing, but somehow, for me, the book fell flat from the very beginning. I had to struggle to read it and for atleast the first 90 pages there was no clarity or apparent direction to the story. I felt that there was too much information randomly patched together and often I had to go back and read the previous paragraph to look for a connection. In between some good, entertaining portions would surface and keep me going. I did not want to drop the book because I thought that it had great potential. While Amanda’s habits are not praise-worthy, I understand her plight at being posited in a very competitive and austere school environment where if you don’t get exceptional grades or don’t wear a particular type of footwear, you are classified as being “Unschool”. Furthermore, she gets looked down upon by other students as well which can be detrimental to one’s esteem.
The book started becoming more interesting towards the end after Julia befriends Baker, providing her with the respite that she so well needed. Another thing I found to be interesting is the fact that her three bestfriends are also named Amanda. The relationships that Baker makes or values don’t appear to me as being good enough. Her father doesn’t behave lovingly towards her; her stepmother while being more amiable, doesn’t take a stand for her; her friends behave rather odd at times. There was also the fact that quite a bit of the lingo was incomprehensible to me. Because I couldn’t grasp the cultural meanings behind certain phrases or words, I felt that I was missing out on a lot more. Overall, I didn’t like it much.
Both the cover page and synopsis are so intriguing, but somehow, for me, the book fell flat from the very beginning. I had to struggle to read it and for atleast the first 90 pages there was no clarity or apparent direction to the story. I felt that there was too much information randomly patched together and often I had to go back and read the previous paragraph to look for a connection. In between some good, entertaining portions would surface and keep me going. I did not want to drop the book because I thought that it had great potential. While Amanda’s habits are not praise-worthy, I understand her plight at being posited in a very competitive and austere school environment where if you don’t get exceptional grades or don’t wear a particular type of footwear, you are classified as being “Unschool”. Furthermore, she gets looked down upon by other students as well which can be detrimental to one’s esteem.
The book started becoming more interesting towards the end after Julia befriends Baker, providing her with the respite that she so well needed. Another thing I found to be interesting is the fact that her three bestfriends are also named Amanda. The relationships that Baker makes or values don’t appear to me as being good enough. Her father doesn’t behave lovingly towards her; her stepmother while being more amiable, doesn’t take a stand for her; her friends behave rather odd at times. There was also the fact that quite a bit of the lingo was incomprehensible to me. Because I couldn’t grasp the cultural meanings behind certain phrases or words, I felt that I was missing out on a lot more. Overall, I didn’t like it much.
June 12, 2014
Amanda Baker is known as Baker because she is friends with three other girls at school named Amanda. Set in the seventies, this follows Baker in her quest to escape her hostile, disapproving father and the values of the adult world and find validation and meaning in the determinedly unimpressed atmosphere of her friendship group. Not that it becomes clear Baker is engaged on anything so romantic and coherent as a quest until it fails; the Mandies drift apart and change into everybody else. Baker tentatively begins a friendship with Julia, the secretly subversive games captain. Again, we only realise how much hope Baker invested in the connection when it falls apart. The book is about the search for option and the acceptance of their absence.
A lot of the point of this book is in its specific atmosphere. Levene emphasises the particularity of the material world of the seventies. It’s almost a sensuousness, this attention to the environmental details shaping our experience. In a kind of contrast to any sensuousness, Levene writes with a keen, often unkind eye. Like her previous book A Vision of Loveliness, Levene portrays a female world where observation is cold and unkindly exact, and unforgiving judgement pervades. It’s not an environment in which Baker’s romanticism can fully form itself, let alone triumph in any way.
I think the Mandies could have been characterised a little more distinctly. Otherwise my biggest quibble is the anorexia which it becomes more and more clear Baker is suffering from, though it’s never directly addressed. Sure, she’s unhappy, but we’re never shown how that specifically maps onto the refusal to eat. It seems too much like a haphazard cherry on top. I felt the novel’s biggest strength was its bitterness of tone.
A lot of the point of this book is in its specific atmosphere. Levene emphasises the particularity of the material world of the seventies. It’s almost a sensuousness, this attention to the environmental details shaping our experience. In a kind of contrast to any sensuousness, Levene writes with a keen, often unkind eye. Like her previous book A Vision of Loveliness, Levene portrays a female world where observation is cold and unkindly exact, and unforgiving judgement pervades. It’s not an environment in which Baker’s romanticism can fully form itself, let alone triumph in any way.
I think the Mandies could have been characterised a little more distinctly. Otherwise my biggest quibble is the anorexia which it becomes more and more clear Baker is suffering from, though it’s never directly addressed. Sure, she’s unhappy, but we’re never shown how that specifically maps onto the refusal to eat. It seems too much like a haphazard cherry on top. I felt the novel’s biggest strength was its bitterness of tone.
January 3, 2016
The Following Girls is a coming of age comedy set in a 1970s private girls school. The main character Amanda Baker (one of 4 Mandies in her year who hang around as a clique) is a troubled rebellious teenager due to her biological mother running off when she was small.
I did enjoy the book and found some of the observations and the friendships keenly observed and funny. I did want to slap Amanda at times for being a bit of a spoilt brat at times.
However the pace seemed a bit stilted and there were too many characters especially teachers introduced willy nilly. I felt it would work as a screen play for a TV series as it felt like the chapters were often set pieces
I did enjoy the book and found some of the observations and the friendships keenly observed and funny. I did want to slap Amanda at times for being a bit of a spoilt brat at times.
However the pace seemed a bit stilted and there were too many characters especially teachers introduced willy nilly. I felt it would work as a screen play for a TV series as it felt like the chapters were often set pieces
December 27, 2014
This book had promise, instead it felt like it was trying hard to be young. The main character is at private (public) school in the UK in the 1970s and is basically an overprivileged little oik. Didn't warm to her, or her ishoos at all.
May 13, 2014
This book took me right back to school. Especially the toilets! I laughed out loud and couldn't put it down.
If you fancy reading something a bit different go for it.
If you fancy reading something a bit different go for it.
June 20, 2015
I picked this up as it looked interesting but there just seems to be no point to it? Disappointed and would not reccomend.
September 8, 2015
Very stylish example of quintessentially English satire. I found fascinating the subject matter of growing in the 70s London. There where the moments I laughed loud, but it is also dark in parts.
September 13, 2015
Not so good as the delightful Vision of Loveliness.
December 26, 2013
Gave up as unreadable on the Kindle
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews