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LBD #1
It's a Girl Thing
Ronnie, Fleur and Claudette are the sharpest, funniest, most switched-on minxes at Blackwell School. Their aims are to have fun, snog boys and go to Astlebury Music Festival, their achievements are not killing their parents when banned from going to previously mentioned festival, and their loves are music, mates and the gorgeous Jimi Steele from Year 11 most embarrassing it's hard to pick one - you've met their parents, right?
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
17 people are currently reading
272 people want to read
About the author
Grace Dent
28 books148 followersBritish columnist, broadcaster and author.
Between 2003-2010, Dent published eleven young adult novels, and was also a presenter on BBC2's The Culture Show, and a magazine and newspaper journalist, including a TV column for the Guardian.
From 2011 to 2017 she wrote a restaurant column for the Evening Standard, and became the Guardian's restaurant critic in 2018. She is a regular judge on the BBC's MasterChef UK and makes frequent appearances in Channel 4's television series Very British Problems.
Grace said in her role as an author for teens: ‘....kids who claim to have never read anything longer than a text message are ploughing through my books nagging me for the next one. This makes me insanely proud.’
She lives in East London with her husband, who works in the music industry. When she's not writing comedy Grace is to be found 'faffing about on the Internet' or 'faffing about in the garden or kitchen' or 'just 'faffing about generally. "I'm an excellent 'faffer."
Between 2003-2010, Dent published eleven young adult novels, and was also a presenter on BBC2's The Culture Show, and a magazine and newspaper journalist, including a TV column for the Guardian.
From 2011 to 2017 she wrote a restaurant column for the Evening Standard, and became the Guardian's restaurant critic in 2018. She is a regular judge on the BBC's MasterChef UK and makes frequent appearances in Channel 4's television series Very British Problems.
Grace said in her role as an author for teens: ‘....kids who claim to have never read anything longer than a text message are ploughing through my books nagging me for the next one. This makes me insanely proud.’
She lives in East London with her husband, who works in the music industry. When she's not writing comedy Grace is to be found 'faffing about on the Internet' or 'faffing about in the garden or kitchen' or 'just 'faffing about generally. "I'm an excellent 'faffer."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
July 17, 2022
It's a Girl Thing was never truly on my radar until recently. Mostly because it ended up working for a certain challenge or two. So, I'll admit that I definitely dove into this with zero expectations. Which was a good thing on my part because it was just an okay book.
Okay, maybe it was worse than okay but then again - I did this to myself. It would have made things easier if I actually liked a character or something. Unfortunately, that just never happened. It also didn't help that it felt like things were pretty repetitive either. I feel like if I found this book when I was a lot younger, then maybe I would have liked it a bit more than I do now.
In the end, I tried but I don't think I will jump into the sequel unless I absolutely need to.
Okay, maybe it was worse than okay but then again - I did this to myself. It would have made things easier if I actually liked a character or something. Unfortunately, that just never happened. It also didn't help that it felt like things were pretty repetitive either. I feel like if I found this book when I was a lot younger, then maybe I would have liked it a bit more than I do now.
In the end, I tried but I don't think I will jump into the sequel unless I absolutely need to.
April 25, 2012
I thought that this book was ok but half the time I didnt know what they were talking about because I am guessing they live in England and I dont so I dont always understand what they mean when they say certain things. Other than that I thought it was an ok book. Its good if you have a little time on your hands because it is not very long. One thing I didnt like about the book is that they were encountering problems in the books that happened in the beginning and they were just repeating information. I still cant really give this book a horrible review because I read the 3rd book first without even knowing it was the third book so this really helped me understand certain things that happened in the other book. I am looking forward to reading the second book now though because I would be done with series and have a feeling of completion. One really important thing to keep in mind if you plan on reading this type of book, is that this book is for like younger girls and it has to do with alot of girly things that can relate to some middle school and high school aged girls so its not really something for you to read if you really dont like kind of girly books because then you would really not like this book.
February 6, 2017
J'ai pas trop aimé le livre car l'histoire est pas ouf,juste 3 copines qui organisent un festival.. plutôt ennuyant sur les bords. Pour moi c'était un peu une histoire "basique" qu'on peut retrouver dans pas mal de romans ados genre "une bande de copines qui ont une vie un peu répétitive et y'en a une qui veux sortir avec un garçon "populaire" mais elles se fait persécuter par une fille "populaire" " La fin est pas ouf non plus,le festival est réussi,la fille qui les énervais les a lâchées, et la fille qui rêvais du garçon populaire sort avec. En gros tout va bien dans le meilleur des mondes et tchao les gars. Je ne le recommande pas trop malgres que je l'ai quand même apprécié.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 30, 2009
I liked this book. But you know I love English people so it was a given that I liked this book. lol
August 7, 2013
Aburrido y soso, batalle mucho para acabar de leer el libro teniendo en cuenta que tiene como 200 paginas -_-
April 9, 2009
Fair warning: I didn't actually finish this book. I don't plan to, either.
A lot of YA (young adult) lit involves dysfunctional parents. As with a lot of chick lit, some of these narrators are aware the parents are crazy, and some seem to just think they're describing harmless wacky fun. This book, obviously (pink cover! "girl" and girly acronym in the title!) has some overlap with that category; it's teen chick lit. And, unfortunately, it takes the "harmless wacky fun" attitude toward the parents.
I just couldn't read it. I was hoping for a fun grrl power romp, which it may be. Hey, the girls want to go to a rock festival, and they're not allowed, and then their annual school picnic (described as pretty much being a day when they can all dress their skimpiest and make out as much as possible) gets canceled - so rather than do yet another boring kids-sneak-out adventure, they plan their own local music festival!
Sounds fun and empowering, right? But I just couldn't make it past the first chapter or two. The protagonist - like most chick lit protagonists - has very low self-esteem, and it became agonizingly clear early on that that's mainly due to her mom's emotional abuse. The narration treats her mom as if she's going to be an amusing terror, but that only works if the character is sympathetic and loving when good people are around. Instead, we get classy scenes like this one, where I threw the book down for once and for all (page 43-44 in my paperback copy):
Okay, between you and me, [says Veronica, the protagonist and narrator:], what terrifies me most about asking for help is being officially certified "dumb." Don't tell me it doesn't happen. I've seen the special stickers they put on your personal files to signify "borderline retarded." I've skated pretty close to this with a few school reports too. Not in cool lessons like English or religious studies, no, I tend to A grade them. I'm talking about maths and science. That's where I blow, big time. Those snidey little remarks written on my end-of-year report cards really keep me awake at night:
"Ronnie is a capable girl but loses all interest when the going gets tough. Grade: D," my science teacher bitched last year.
"Pah, that's what you're like with everything. You've always been a quitter," snapped my mother helpfully.
"Gnnnngn," I grunted, grasping around for one really difficult thing in my life I've actually finished. And failing.
I am such a loser.
It just killed me to read such a concrete, obvious example of how her mother's rage was destroying Ronnie's self-esteem. I mean, when she gets good grades in something, she doesn't understand that she's good at it or smart, she just thinks that means it's "cool" and kind of tosses it aside; when she gets bad grades in something, she's so traumatized that she thinks it means she's stupid, or that she may be developmentally disabled in some way.
And she can't ask for help because if even admitting her grades are bad makes her own mother call her names and shut her down, asking for help must mean something even worse would happen. She imagines that she wouldn't get help, she would just reveal to everyone that there is "something wrong with her" and get labeled and set aside by the whole world. Because that's all she's experienced at home.
No wonder she "quits" when things are too hard - she can't see any other options. This is typical of the way that abuse survivors are set up to self-sabotage at work, in our own projects, and just in life.
The author is, at least, clear that Veronica's parents are fighting and that their fighting in front of her is not okay, that it terrifies her - which usually means that the fighting will be resolved later on in the book. When I typed that quote up, I remembered that and regained some hope that the book would eventually come around. Maybe author Grace Dent really got how terrible the mom was, and they would have a heart-to-heart where the mom vows to get help and change her ways....
So I flipped through the rest of it. Here's what happens: the mom TAKES OFF. Disappears to her own mother's house. Doesn't tell Ronnie she's leaving. Ronnie, who is in the middle of planning a freaking music festival at age 14, doesn't realize her mom has gone until FOUR days later - nobody, apparently, thinks to talk to her about it at all, including her father. When someone who works in the family restaurant admits her mother has gone, Ronnie calls her and her mom, if you can believe this, goes, "Oh, hello, darling. Oh, so you've eventually called me. Have you run out of clean knickers or something?" And rather than being outraged that her mom ran off, didn't tell her, didn't call her, and is now being a passive-aggressive bitch about it, what does Ronnie think? "Touché." GAH!!!!
And then it's all, blah blah blah, music festival, blah blah blah, agonizing about whether her mom will ever come back, blah blah, and at the veeery end her mom comes back, out of nowhere, no warning at all, and her dad is all "This is the best excuse anyone has ever given you in the whole world," and the excuse is that her mom went nuts and ran off because she's PREGNANT and the dad had said they were "too old to have another little baby in the house." And Ronnie, of course, agrees that this is the best excuse EVER because it means she will be a big sister and hey, who wouldn't go nuts if they had "a real actual person growing" inside of them. OH DEAR GOD.
I should have expected all this, really, because the book's dedication reads, "for mam - who lives with the world's worst teenager". And usually people who think they were the world's worst teenager are people who have no perspective on normal child development or on how abusive a family has to be to result in "the world's worst teenager." Hey, I work at an outpatient drug and alcohol treatment center for teenagers - I KNOW.
So in short: not worth the pain of reading it to get to the great bits about how she and her friends successfully throw this festival, or the one time her mom says something nice to her about how "competent" she is. There are a lot of other books out there; read one of those.
A lot of YA (young adult) lit involves dysfunctional parents. As with a lot of chick lit, some of these narrators are aware the parents are crazy, and some seem to just think they're describing harmless wacky fun. This book, obviously (pink cover! "girl" and girly acronym in the title!) has some overlap with that category; it's teen chick lit. And, unfortunately, it takes the "harmless wacky fun" attitude toward the parents.
I just couldn't read it. I was hoping for a fun grrl power romp, which it may be. Hey, the girls want to go to a rock festival, and they're not allowed, and then their annual school picnic (described as pretty much being a day when they can all dress their skimpiest and make out as much as possible) gets canceled - so rather than do yet another boring kids-sneak-out adventure, they plan their own local music festival!
Sounds fun and empowering, right? But I just couldn't make it past the first chapter or two. The protagonist - like most chick lit protagonists - has very low self-esteem, and it became agonizingly clear early on that that's mainly due to her mom's emotional abuse. The narration treats her mom as if she's going to be an amusing terror, but that only works if the character is sympathetic and loving when good people are around. Instead, we get classy scenes like this one, where I threw the book down for once and for all (page 43-44 in my paperback copy):
Okay, between you and me, [says Veronica, the protagonist and narrator:], what terrifies me most about asking for help is being officially certified "dumb." Don't tell me it doesn't happen. I've seen the special stickers they put on your personal files to signify "borderline retarded." I've skated pretty close to this with a few school reports too. Not in cool lessons like English or religious studies, no, I tend to A grade them. I'm talking about maths and science. That's where I blow, big time. Those snidey little remarks written on my end-of-year report cards really keep me awake at night:
"Ronnie is a capable girl but loses all interest when the going gets tough. Grade: D," my science teacher bitched last year.
"Pah, that's what you're like with everything. You've always been a quitter," snapped my mother helpfully.
"Gnnnngn," I grunted, grasping around for one really difficult thing in my life I've actually finished. And failing.
I am such a loser.
It just killed me to read such a concrete, obvious example of how her mother's rage was destroying Ronnie's self-esteem. I mean, when she gets good grades in something, she doesn't understand that she's good at it or smart, she just thinks that means it's "cool" and kind of tosses it aside; when she gets bad grades in something, she's so traumatized that she thinks it means she's stupid, or that she may be developmentally disabled in some way.
And she can't ask for help because if even admitting her grades are bad makes her own mother call her names and shut her down, asking for help must mean something even worse would happen. She imagines that she wouldn't get help, she would just reveal to everyone that there is "something wrong with her" and get labeled and set aside by the whole world. Because that's all she's experienced at home.
No wonder she "quits" when things are too hard - she can't see any other options. This is typical of the way that abuse survivors are set up to self-sabotage at work, in our own projects, and just in life.
The author is, at least, clear that Veronica's parents are fighting and that their fighting in front of her is not okay, that it terrifies her - which usually means that the fighting will be resolved later on in the book. When I typed that quote up, I remembered that and regained some hope that the book would eventually come around. Maybe author Grace Dent really got how terrible the mom was, and they would have a heart-to-heart where the mom vows to get help and change her ways....
So I flipped through the rest of it. Here's what happens: the mom TAKES OFF. Disappears to her own mother's house. Doesn't tell Ronnie she's leaving. Ronnie, who is in the middle of planning a freaking music festival at age 14, doesn't realize her mom has gone until FOUR days later - nobody, apparently, thinks to talk to her about it at all, including her father. When someone who works in the family restaurant admits her mother has gone, Ronnie calls her and her mom, if you can believe this, goes, "Oh, hello, darling. Oh, so you've eventually called me. Have you run out of clean knickers or something?" And rather than being outraged that her mom ran off, didn't tell her, didn't call her, and is now being a passive-aggressive bitch about it, what does Ronnie think? "Touché." GAH!!!!
And then it's all, blah blah blah, music festival, blah blah blah, agonizing about whether her mom will ever come back, blah blah, and at the veeery end her mom comes back, out of nowhere, no warning at all, and her dad is all "This is the best excuse anyone has ever given you in the whole world," and the excuse is that her mom went nuts and ran off because she's PREGNANT and the dad had said they were "too old to have another little baby in the house." And Ronnie, of course, agrees that this is the best excuse EVER because it means she will be a big sister and hey, who wouldn't go nuts if they had "a real actual person growing" inside of them. OH DEAR GOD.
I should have expected all this, really, because the book's dedication reads, "for mam - who lives with the world's worst teenager". And usually people who think they were the world's worst teenager are people who have no perspective on normal child development or on how abusive a family has to be to result in "the world's worst teenager." Hey, I work at an outpatient drug and alcohol treatment center for teenagers - I KNOW.
So in short: not worth the pain of reading it to get to the great bits about how she and her friends successfully throw this festival, or the one time her mom says something nice to her about how "competent" she is. There are a lot of other books out there; read one of those.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 3, 2018
I bought this book for my 10 year old. After reading two chapters I decided it was not appropriate for her and will be donating it. It seems it was more written for a 13 or 14 year old. Honestly I don't think a high schooler would read a book with a cover like that, nor would my Jr higher, so I'm not exactly sure what age group this is for. Disappointing.
February 24, 2023
I did enjoy this book although obviously I would have enjoyed it more if I had read it when I was a teenager but it did take me back to that time. It was really well written but I did think it took Ronnie way too long to figure out her mum was pregnant!
May 7, 2018
I've read this book a couple times since I was around 11 so it's like a comfort book that I keep coming back to. Super funny, light read. Makes me laugh a lot and I adore the three main character.
September 19, 2018
This is an inferior copy of Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicolson series.
May 26, 2019
A book of my youth.
April 19, 2021
s. 211 „Moc vám děkuj!“
špatné dělení slov - s. 202
špatné dělení slov - s. 202
July 16, 2021
Pas mal un peu jeune et le début est pas ouf ça met un peu de temps à se mettre en place mais quand le festival se prépare etc c'est plutôt cool et la fin est bien
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Want to read
January 26, 2024i really want to read this book it seems good .
May 31, 2019
I love this book! I first read it at some point in my tweens and now as a 20 y/o I didn't think I'd like it as much, but it's just as good as ever.
This is a very funny book, mostly because the main character Ronnie has a hilarious internal monologue. The characters are all brilliantly written. They're not ridiculously detailed and in depth, but they're interesting enough for a comedic 250-page book. All the main three girls have their own distinct personalities, and over the course of the book, you grow to love them all in different ways. There are a lot of side characters (but not too many to keep track of), and the romances that the main girls have with the side characters are written well enough to be fun to read but not so much that they overshadow the plot. I also liked the fact that they went to a normal comp, and that 2 of 3 of the main characters were from working-class backgrounds, and from different family units.
However, one problem I have with the books is the ages of the characters. The three girls are supposed to be in y9s, but they act more like y10s. Also, Ronnie's love interest Jimi is 2 years older in y11, which is a big age difference for teenagers. I think it would have worked better if three main girls had been aged up to y10, and then it would have fixed the only problems I have with the book.
Overall, this is a hilarious book that I don't think I'll ever get tired. Grace Dent is amazing! :)
This is a very funny book, mostly because the main character Ronnie has a hilarious internal monologue. The characters are all brilliantly written. They're not ridiculously detailed and in depth, but they're interesting enough for a comedic 250-page book. All the main three girls have their own distinct personalities, and over the course of the book, you grow to love them all in different ways. There are a lot of side characters (but not too many to keep track of), and the romances that the main girls have with the side characters are written well enough to be fun to read but not so much that they overshadow the plot. I also liked the fact that they went to a normal comp, and that 2 of 3 of the main characters were from working-class backgrounds, and from different family units.
However, one problem I have with the books is the ages of the characters. The three girls are supposed to be in y9s, but they act more like y10s. Also, Ronnie's love interest Jimi is 2 years older in y11, which is a big age difference for teenagers. I think it would have worked better if three main girls had been aged up to y10, and then it would have fixed the only problems I have with the book.
Overall, this is a hilarious book that I don't think I'll ever get tired. Grace Dent is amazing! :)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 3, 2010
What i've learned from this book LBD is that friends can sometimes be really annoying when it comes to being/gettin involved in a school activitie becasue they can turn into a something or someone there not-like a monster.In this book the three main characters:Ronnie, Fluer, and Claude(Claudette)are friends i high school and they want to perform on t.v since their parents won't let them on Mtv so they decide to start a local party with their favorite band named Blackwell staring off thje show so then thet persuade their pricipal that they can raise money for their school so they can buy new school supplies and computers.But in the end Ronnie goes out with her crush Jimme and her and her frinds perfom live with athe people who they had auditioned.
January 21, 2013
So I've just begun to read this and first off GoodReads doesn't have the version that I'm reading. This copy I've got now has a much different cover and on the back it's got the penguin logo and "U.K. £4.99 " so I'm assuming it was purchased in Britain. With that in mind, the cover has the title in circle sparkles over silver with a five pointed flower and seven smallish hand drawnish colorful circles lining the bottom of the lavender cover. Plus the front to back has what appears to be variations of slides which depict fun in the sun through snap shops!
I like how the dedication is:
"For Mam-who lived with the world's worst teenager"
I like how the dedication is:
"For Mam-who lived with the world's worst teenager"
August 16, 2017
STAMPATO NELLA MENTE
Come si può leggere un libro secoli prima ed avercelo ancora stampato in mente? Forse perché l'amore viscerale provato nei suoi confronti mi ha spinto a rileggerlo un'infinità di volte, ansiosa di rivivere le avventure delle mitiche LBD (Les Bambinos Dangereuses), di cui avrei voluto tanto far parte!
Non potete capire quanto mi hanno appassionato le audizioni e quanto ho goduto di fronte alla scoperta che
Come si può leggere un libro secoli prima ed avercelo ancora stampato in mente? Forse perché l'amore viscerale provato nei suoi confronti mi ha spinto a rileggerlo un'infinità di volte, ansiosa di rivivere le avventure delle mitiche LBD (Les Bambinos Dangereuses), di cui avrei voluto tanto far parte!
Non potete capire quanto mi hanno appassionato le audizioni e quanto ho goduto di fronte alla scoperta che
November 6, 2025
This is one of those "comfort" books that I re-read every few years. I first read it in middle school and felt so connected to the main characters. I wanted a group of friends like the LBD who got up to amazing adventures. (I remember writing my own stories that were suspiciously similar to elements from this series.) It'll always be 5 stars in my heart for that reason, even though comparatively there isn't much to this YA-fluff. But it's MY YA-fluff.
Currently reading
January 21, 2010Not so into this book as I thought I would be. Reminds me of many things as this movies I saw (not sure what the movies name is). I was hoping to be hooked on to this book, but maybe I will start to like it later on the pages of this girls teenage life. I am now farther on the pages and slowly beginning to like it.
June 27, 2011
An interesting twist on the usual high school drama. Yes there are still bullies and boys and girlfriends, but this time the girls are taking control. Banned from attending the hottest thing in rock since forever, they host their own concert and are suddenly the talk of the town. With two great surprises at the end of their concert, this is one rock contest nobody will soon forget.
November 20, 2014
One of the better examples of Angus-Thongs-wannabes. These books have generally positive messages about friendship, doing what's right, etc., but are wrapped in a bubblegum-pink package that includes cute boys and pop stars.
April 17, 2008
I would not recomend this book to ANYONE. It was HORRIBLE!! There were only 30ish pages near the end that were OK. Other than that the story wasn't very good. It takes a while for it to get started also. That might be why it took me a couple yrs. to get all the way through it. :)
January 8, 2011
Ths was not the best book ever. I found it a real drag to read. Only the last 3 chapters were the best one i think and im sorry to say but i will not be reading the other LBD book.
3/5 for me
MJ_Lover xoxox
3/5 for me
MJ_Lover xoxox
February 13, 2011
Got it for the Gruesome Twosome but they didn't like it. I thought it would appeal as similar to the Georgia Nicholson books but it's not as good. I want to do my Teen Novel again for NaNo 2010 so this is 'research'.
March 19, 2008
More english comedy!!! (I can never get enough)
August 9, 2008
When their parents won't let them go to a big music festival, three friends decide to stage their own festival at their school.
August 31, 2008
This was a very weak British import trying to be Louise Rennison.
October 20, 2008
loved it
March 1, 2009
omg, i didn't like this book
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews