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Illustrated Mum #2
Picture Imperfect
Discover the messy and joyful new novel from the
Sunday Times
bestselling author of
Think Again
; a nostalgic adult sequel to the beloved classic,
The Illustrated Mum
!
Dolphin Westward is done putting everyone else first - especially her unpredictable mother, Marigold. But how do you break the habit of a lifetime?
When she meets Lee, the kind single dad next door, she glimpses the wholesome family life she’s always wanted. Then Joel crashes into her world - a rugged, magnetic actor who makes her feel truly seen - and suddenly Dolphin finds herself torn between two very different futures.
It's not long before everything begins to unravel, and her picture-perfect life feels further away than ever.
Faced with losing it all, can she learn to stop chasing perfection and start being herself?
Dolphin Westward is done putting everyone else first - especially her unpredictable mother, Marigold. But how do you break the habit of a lifetime?
When she meets Lee, the kind single dad next door, she glimpses the wholesome family life she’s always wanted. Then Joel crashes into her world - a rugged, magnetic actor who makes her feel truly seen - and suddenly Dolphin finds herself torn between two very different futures.
It's not long before everything begins to unravel, and her picture-perfect life feels further away than ever.
Faced with losing it all, can she learn to stop chasing perfection and start being herself?
272 pages, Paperback
Published September 22, 2026
About the author
Jacqueline Wilson
424 books5,973 followersJacqueline Wilson was born in Bath in 1945, but spent most of her childhood in Kingston-on-Thames. She always wanted to be a writer and wrote her first ‘novel’ when she was nine, filling in countless Woolworths’ exercise books as she grew up. As a teenager she started work for a magazine publishing company and then went on to work as a journalist on Jackie magazine (which she was told was named after her!) before turning to writing novels full-time.
One of Jacqueline’s most successful and enduring creations has been the famous Tracy Beaker, who first appeared in 1991 in The Story of Tracy Beaker. This was also the first of her books to be illustrated by Nick Sharratt. Since then Jacqueline has been on countless awards shortlists and has gone on to win many awards. The Illustrated Mum won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award, the 1999 Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards and was also shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread Children’s Book Award.
Double Act won the prestigious Smarties Medal and the Children’s Book Award as well as being highly commended for the Carnegie Medal. The Story of Tracy Beaker won the 2002 Blue Peter People’s Choice Award.
Jacqueline is one of the nation’s favourite authors, and her books are loved and cherished by young readers not only in the UK but all over the world. She has sold millions of books and in the UK alone the total now stands at over 35 million!
In 2002 Jacqueline was awarded the OBE for services to literacy in schools and from 2005 to 2007 she was the Children’s Laureate. In 2008 she became Dame Jacqueline Wilson.
One of Jacqueline’s most successful and enduring creations has been the famous Tracy Beaker, who first appeared in 1991 in The Story of Tracy Beaker. This was also the first of her books to be illustrated by Nick Sharratt. Since then Jacqueline has been on countless awards shortlists and has gone on to win many awards. The Illustrated Mum won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award, the 1999 Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards and was also shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread Children’s Book Award.
Double Act won the prestigious Smarties Medal and the Children’s Book Award as well as being highly commended for the Carnegie Medal. The Story of Tracy Beaker won the 2002 Blue Peter People’s Choice Award.
Jacqueline is one of the nation’s favourite authors, and her books are loved and cherished by young readers not only in the UK but all over the world. She has sold millions of books and in the UK alone the total now stands at over 35 million!
In 2002 Jacqueline was awarded the OBE for services to literacy in schools and from 2005 to 2007 she was the Children’s Laureate. In 2008 she became Dame Jacqueline Wilson.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 781 reviews
September 12, 2025
wish i was like Dolphin so i couldn’t read this
August 11, 2025
I adore Jacqueline Wilson but she writes her adult characters in a very childlike way. Made a fair bit of it cringey and Dolphin was irritating beyond words 🤯 I’m a JW stan though so will probably still read anything else she writes…
August 28, 2025
I didn't think it could get worse. Fucking hell, I called Think Again the most bitter disappointment of my reading life, but at least that one didn't leave me trembling with rage after I'd finished it.
The Illustrated Mum meant a lot to me, especially in my own journey of being diagnosed with bipolar. I was excited for the sequel, wanting to know how they'd got on and how modern medicine would be helping Marigold.
At least Picture Imperfect doesn't share the dreadful inconsistencies or character assassinations Think Again did, although it does suffer from a barely-covered time skip, and poor Oliver "Owly" Morris gets the Eggs treatment, mentioned in passing with only one actual scene, barely a quarter of a chapter. But hey he's married to a man, good for him. Also why is there a seperate character called Morris if that was Oli's last name? But Oli says something about "year six girls looking almost sixteen" at a disco so maybe it's good we barely see him.
Speaking of, Dol tattoos a thirteen year old girl because she has ID that says she's eighteen. I thought Dol wasn't meant to be BLIND nor stupid? Yes young teenagers like to make themselves look older to bend the rules, but no child of thirteen looks remotely NEAR eighteen, even with ID! She's lucky she only got fired, I'd have loved to see her in cuffs for that. And we're supposed to hate the hysterical mother of the poor girl!
The first thing that made me damn near puke was the mention of "TikTok romantasy novels". I thought Wilson went a bit ham on the modern terms and trends in Think Again but every mention of "TikTok" and "viral" in here made me physically cringe.
Now I love sex scenes. I love sexually empowered women. I love representation of female masturbation in books. But there wasn't a single sex scene in Picture Imperfect that didn't viscerally repulse me. Dol and Lee try to have sex while his infant daughter is meters away from them. Dol talks about touching herself until she comes in her childhood bedroom she was sharing with Star. Jacqueline Wilsom cannot write sex, her intimate scenes are desperately uncomfortable. Perhaps worsened by the fact she's our childhood hero and these adult sequels are cashing in on our nostalgia. Your traumatising stories once rocked me to sleep, Jacqueline, don't talk about the feeling of some slimy man's cock inside this terribly tiny timid woman.
She also uses the word "situationship". STOP IT.
The representation of mental illness is the best thing this book has going for it, delicately but realistically handled. I would gripe that Marigold was never properly offered any alternative treatments such as antipsychotics or anticonvulsants when years of lithium clearly hadn't been for her, but maybe Jacqueline Wilson wanted true-to-life medical negligence. I mean, "Depakine" and "Depakote" (Valporate) are mentioned but it just seemed like an attempt at medical jargon to me.
Marigold makes a friend in the psychiatric ward who suffers from anorexia. Thankfully Wilson knows to tiptoe around that subject after Girls Under Pressure but I thought this could have been a good way to tell us what happened to the Zoe character from that book. Pardon me for thinking Jacqueline Wilson cared.
Oh, and guess what? Lee does what Guy did in Think Again! He becomes controlling and meddling and humiliates Dol and thinks he rules her life and scolds her like she's a child! And later tells Dol she doesn't look much older than his infant daughter! Everybody, let's all laugh at this awful man who's supposed to be a sweet but "just not for me" love interest!
There's a character called Henrietta YEWTREE. Girl it's 2025 and that word has but one association. One you don't want with your gentle female character. That works with CHILDREN.
One last positive before the kicker, we get a Jane Austen reference. But it's your most surface level wet shirt reference so whatever.
As if all this wasn't bad enough. The ending. We don't get a sweet family moment. Okay, it's Jacqueline Wilson, those are rare. Star's barely explored plot isn't tied up, Marigold is still in hospital and her condition is ambiguous, Dol doesn't want Lee and neither wants to continue her sordid affair with the slimy actor.
A surprise pregnancy.
A.
SURPRISE.
FUCKING.
PREGNANCY.
When Dol brought up the possibility of her being pregnant, I had to set the book down and clap my hands over my mouth and scream. The father could be either man, do we find out, do we fuck! Dol lives in a tiny bedsit and is broke and torn up and is terrified she's inherited her mother's bipolar because she's such an emotional wreck - but oh she can't possibly have an abortion, even the notion!
Bow in another hideously rushed ending on a pathetic hopeful note that Dol will be okay because suddenly she's going to thrust a child into this mess?
I closed the book, shaking with rage, and lobbed it at my bedroom wall. I couldn't give a sliver of a fuck what Wilson's next adult project is, I don't want to see this woman's books ever again.
The Illustrated Mum meant a lot to me, especially in my own journey of being diagnosed with bipolar. I was excited for the sequel, wanting to know how they'd got on and how modern medicine would be helping Marigold.
At least Picture Imperfect doesn't share the dreadful inconsistencies or character assassinations Think Again did, although it does suffer from a barely-covered time skip, and poor Oliver "Owly" Morris gets the Eggs treatment, mentioned in passing with only one actual scene, barely a quarter of a chapter. But hey he's married to a man, good for him. Also why is there a seperate character called Morris if that was Oli's last name? But Oli says something about "year six girls looking almost sixteen" at a disco so maybe it's good we barely see him.
Speaking of, Dol tattoos a thirteen year old girl because she has ID that says she's eighteen. I thought Dol wasn't meant to be BLIND nor stupid? Yes young teenagers like to make themselves look older to bend the rules, but no child of thirteen looks remotely NEAR eighteen, even with ID! She's lucky she only got fired, I'd have loved to see her in cuffs for that. And we're supposed to hate the hysterical mother of the poor girl!
The first thing that made me damn near puke was the mention of "TikTok romantasy novels". I thought Wilson went a bit ham on the modern terms and trends in Think Again but every mention of "TikTok" and "viral" in here made me physically cringe.
Now I love sex scenes. I love sexually empowered women. I love representation of female masturbation in books. But there wasn't a single sex scene in Picture Imperfect that didn't viscerally repulse me. Dol and Lee try to have sex while his infant daughter is meters away from them. Dol talks about touching herself until she comes in her childhood bedroom she was sharing with Star. Jacqueline Wilsom cannot write sex, her intimate scenes are desperately uncomfortable. Perhaps worsened by the fact she's our childhood hero and these adult sequels are cashing in on our nostalgia. Your traumatising stories once rocked me to sleep, Jacqueline, don't talk about the feeling of some slimy man's cock inside this terribly tiny timid woman.
She also uses the word "situationship". STOP IT.
The representation of mental illness is the best thing this book has going for it, delicately but realistically handled. I would gripe that Marigold was never properly offered any alternative treatments such as antipsychotics or anticonvulsants when years of lithium clearly hadn't been for her, but maybe Jacqueline Wilson wanted true-to-life medical negligence. I mean, "Depakine" and "Depakote" (Valporate) are mentioned but it just seemed like an attempt at medical jargon to me.
Marigold makes a friend in the psychiatric ward who suffers from anorexia. Thankfully Wilson knows to tiptoe around that subject after Girls Under Pressure but I thought this could have been a good way to tell us what happened to the Zoe character from that book. Pardon me for thinking Jacqueline Wilson cared.
Oh, and guess what? Lee does what Guy did in Think Again! He becomes controlling and meddling and humiliates Dol and thinks he rules her life and scolds her like she's a child! And later tells Dol she doesn't look much older than his infant daughter! Everybody, let's all laugh at this awful man who's supposed to be a sweet but "just not for me" love interest!
There's a character called Henrietta YEWTREE. Girl it's 2025 and that word has but one association. One you don't want with your gentle female character. That works with CHILDREN.
One last positive before the kicker, we get a Jane Austen reference. But it's your most surface level wet shirt reference so whatever.
As if all this wasn't bad enough. The ending. We don't get a sweet family moment. Okay, it's Jacqueline Wilson, those are rare. Star's barely explored plot isn't tied up, Marigold is still in hospital and her condition is ambiguous, Dol doesn't want Lee and neither wants to continue her sordid affair with the slimy actor.
A surprise pregnancy.
A.
SURPRISE.
FUCKING.
PREGNANCY.
When Dol brought up the possibility of her being pregnant, I had to set the book down and clap my hands over my mouth and scream. The father could be either man, do we find out, do we fuck! Dol lives in a tiny bedsit and is broke and torn up and is terrified she's inherited her mother's bipolar because she's such an emotional wreck - but oh she can't possibly have an abortion, even the notion!
Bow in another hideously rushed ending on a pathetic hopeful note that Dol will be okay because suddenly she's going to thrust a child into this mess?
I closed the book, shaking with rage, and lobbed it at my bedroom wall. I couldn't give a sliver of a fuck what Wilson's next adult project is, I don't want to see this woman's books ever again.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 13, 2025
There are only so many times I can read “don’t let’s quarrel” said by characters meant to be in their early thirties.
August 30, 2025
the explicit sex scenes feel incredibly wrong but i had to support my queen jacky w
August 30, 2025
tldr: she fucked around, she found out.
September 17, 2026
2.5: I nearly died about 4 pages in when Jacqueline Wilson casually dropped a fuck 😭 It’s like hearing a priest swear. Technically, you know there’s nothing wrong with it, but on a molecular level, it just feels wrong?
I had a lot of complaints about Think Again, but this is Jacqueline Wilson. This woman basically raised me. I have a huge soft spot for her, and a lot of affection for her books and what they meant to me, so she got another chance.
And I’d like to formally apologise to my past self for allowing nostalgia to trick me into doing this. Nostalgia is a helluva drug.
Affection and quality are not the same thing. And the worst part is, I know I’ll do it again for the next one.
The writing's simple and easy to get sucked into, but my biggest problem with JW’s “adult” fiction is that it doesn’t actually feel like fiction for or about adults. It feels like she got one of her children’s books in a headlock, added sex and a few swear words, then called it a day.
This is essentially a romance novel, with a half-baked love triangle involving Lee, the gentle family man next door, and Joel, the barely there Bad Boy™. I’m sorry, but WHO ASKED FOR THIS? I didn’t come back to these characters to find out who Dolphin was going to shag. I wanted her life. Her family. Her relationship with Marigold and Star. I wanted to know what 20 years had actually done to Dolphin after The Illustrated Mum. What did she learn? What did she forgive? How did becoming an adult change the way she understood her mother?
Instead, Dolphin doesn’t feel like someone who’s been living her life between books. She’s aged, but she hasn’t really grown up.
Take Megan. At 10, Dolphin’s feelings about her dad’s new wife make sense. But at 33? 🤨
Megan's been married to Michael for more than 20 years, but Dolphin still behaves as though Megan arrived last Tuesday and is personally responsible for the fact that Michael and Marigold didn’t live happily ever after.
They were together for 11 months.
Apparently Megan's the longest running rebound relationship in recorded history. Michael and Marigold’s relationship was shorter than some people’s broadband contracts, yet if we believe Dolphin’s version of events, he’s spent the last two decades thinking about the one that got away.
Seeing someone you once adored can absolutely stir up old feelings. You can wonder what your life might have looked like and grieve the version of your life that never happened. That doesn’t mean your wife was a consolation prize.
But, like everything in this book, nuance has been kicked out the door.
Megan's basically the Wicked Stepmother, with all the subtlety of a pantomime villain. She’s so relentlessly horrible that I was waiting for her to spin around in a chair while stroking a white cat. It makes sense through the eyes of a frightened child; it’s bizarre coming from an adult woman, no matter how stunted from years in care she may be, who’s had a lifetime to acquire some perspective.
And that’s what I wanted from this book: perspective. I wanted to see what time had done to Dolphin, Star, and Marigold.
Jacqueline Wilson used to be so good at writing children and families who were messy, contradictory, selfish, frightened, loving, jealous, generous, traumatised, resilient, and occasionally horrible all at once. She trusted us with complicated things: poverty, neglect, abuse, grief, mental illness, family breakdown, sexuality, difficult parents, divorce. She never seemed to think we needed everything sanded down into a nice little lesson.
But once those children become adults, suddenly we get: WOMAN. TWO MEN. CHOOSE.
What happened???
I’d love to see her write an adult woman whose primary problem isn’t some mid men. Give me women with careers they care about, friendships that have survived since childhood, ambitions, weird opinions, estranged siblings, ageing parents, midlife crises, or the crushing boredom of a Tuesday.
Give me a woman who’s become invested in an absolutely deranged hobby at 25. Give me a woman going through menopause who’s taking out all her rage on her allotment committee. Give me literally anything other than WHICH MAN WILL SHE CHOOSE.
Because a love triangle and some deeply unsexy sex scenes don’t magically make a book adult.
No, babe. You’re a children’s novel wearing a fake moustache.
And the lack of nuance isn’t limited to romance. Take the tattoos. Every tattooed character can be categorised as MENTALLY UNWELL or ARSEHOLE, while bare skin's basically the mark of an angel.
Tattoo? Suspicious.
Three tattoos? Needs therapy.
Dragon tattoo? Call the police.
Unfortunately for me, I have a dragon tattoo. And a ryūjin, which is a koi transforming into a dragon. And a koi, which is basically a future dragon in training. Apparently I’m one tattoo away from becoming the final boss of Jacqueline's nightmares. I also have a pusheen, but the author probably thinks it's a gang sign.
I'm sick of the word dragon.
There are other tattoos, Jacqueline. The tattoo shop has options. Do you... believe people only get dragon tattoos?
I swear there are fewer mentions of dragons in an entire dragon-shifter romance.
I remember reading that Marigold had around 25 tattoos as a child and thinking, TWENTY FIVE??? THAT’S HER ENTIRE BODY!!! Now I have enough tattoos myself to know that 25 isn’t exactly an astonishing number. I started counting mine, got to 25, and realised I hadn’t even covered half of them. It genuinely reads like a child trying to think of an enormous number.
But really, the tattoos are just another symptom of the same problem: everything that’s supposed to signal ADULT feels like an adult concept being viewed from a distance.
Which brings me to the dialogue.
The characters are supposed to be millennials, but half the time they sound like they’ve wandered out of an Enid Blyton book. “Don’t let’s quarrel.” WHO. WHO SAYS THAT?
Even as a child, I noticed how old fashioned the language could be. Now it’s surreal. But what makes it even funnier is the temporal whiplash of the modern references. The book occasionally remembers that we have electricity and indoor plumbing now. Netflix exists. TikTok exists. Instagram exists. Romantasy exists.
But Dolphin is still pressing the button on her phone to answer it, which immediately conjured an image of a brick that weighs more than a toddler. And the half-hearted mentions of TikTok and romantasy had me like, Jackie, who gave you the briefing??
The “getting high on drink or drugs!” lines (yes, lines, plural) nearly finished me off. Getting high on drink? DRINK?
I just know the author thinks a drug deal goes, “Hello, yes, I would like one drug please.”
Then there’s Dolphin’s job search, which feels like it was preserved in amber. She just walks into places or phones up and gets praised for having the initiative to speak to someone face-to-face.
Imagine Dolphin materialising at the nursery reception:
“Hello, I was wondering if you were hiring?”
“Have you applied online?”
“No.”
“Do you have a CV?”
“What’s a CV?”
“Do you have a DBS check?”
“…”
“References?”
“…”
“Right.”
As hilarious as this can be, like Think Again when they were phoning for Deliveroos, the lack of contemporary perspective becomes less funny when it extends to the serious subjects. The descriptions of mental illness feel dated, reducing complicated experiences to being “mad”, “unstable”, “troubled”, or “damaged”.
Likewise, Dolphin’s dyslexia feels like a permanent plot obstacle. This is a character living in a world with speech-to-text, text-to-speech, OCR, screen readers, and a million other accessibility tools. I know I’m shifting into work mode (accessibility designer here!) but I wanted to see Dolphin develop strategies and figure out what works for her to become independent in ways her younger self couldn’t have imagined.
Instead, 20 years have passed and nobody updated her character sheet.
The characters have experienced time, but they haven’t experienced development.
And that extends to the socioeconomic side of the book, which is frustrating for me because it's one of the things I loved most about JW as a child. I was a poor girl from a shitty home, and seeing girls who weren’t living neat little middle-class lives mattered so much to me. JW wrote about council houses, struggling parents, chaotic families, and imperfect lives.
But as an adult, I find it frustrating that so many of them seem trapped in those same circumstances forever. They get older, but they don’t necessarily get more.
And that’s such a shame, because she once understood that children could be complicated people. I wanted to see what happened when those complicated children became complicated adults.
At least Star gets to escape. I adored Star in the first book 🥹
I’m convinced this is setting up a sequel where Dolphin becomes Marigold. Lee becomes Michael, the father who gets pushed out. Joel becomes Mickey, the man who steps up. Dolphin recreates her mother’s mistakes.
I am going to throw myself into the sea.
There’s still something comforting about opening one of her books. But it’s also kind of insulting when the “adult” characters haven’t grown alongside the readers who loved them. So when I pick up an adult sequel and find that the characters haven’t done the same, it feels like she’s asking us to regress along with them.
Jacqueline, I adore you. But please. LET YOUR GIRLS GROW UP.
I had a lot of complaints about Think Again, but this is Jacqueline Wilson. This woman basically raised me. I have a huge soft spot for her, and a lot of affection for her books and what they meant to me, so she got another chance.
And I’d like to formally apologise to my past self for allowing nostalgia to trick me into doing this. Nostalgia is a helluva drug.
Affection and quality are not the same thing. And the worst part is, I know I’ll do it again for the next one.
The writing's simple and easy to get sucked into, but my biggest problem with JW’s “adult” fiction is that it doesn’t actually feel like fiction for or about adults. It feels like she got one of her children’s books in a headlock, added sex and a few swear words, then called it a day.
This is essentially a romance novel, with a half-baked love triangle involving Lee, the gentle family man next door, and Joel, the barely there Bad Boy™. I’m sorry, but WHO ASKED FOR THIS? I didn’t come back to these characters to find out who Dolphin was going to shag. I wanted her life. Her family. Her relationship with Marigold and Star. I wanted to know what 20 years had actually done to Dolphin after The Illustrated Mum. What did she learn? What did she forgive? How did becoming an adult change the way she understood her mother?
Instead, Dolphin doesn’t feel like someone who’s been living her life between books. She’s aged, but she hasn’t really grown up.
Take Megan. At 10, Dolphin’s feelings about her dad’s new wife make sense. But at 33? 🤨
Megan's been married to Michael for more than 20 years, but Dolphin still behaves as though Megan arrived last Tuesday and is personally responsible for the fact that Michael and Marigold didn’t live happily ever after.
They were together for 11 months.
He lived with her for eleven months, and he loved her way more than he loves you. She was the one who left him and I’m not sure he ever got over it.ELEVEN.
Apparently Megan's the longest running rebound relationship in recorded history. Michael and Marigold’s relationship was shorter than some people’s broadband contracts, yet if we believe Dolphin’s version of events, he’s spent the last two decades thinking about the one that got away.
Seeing someone you once adored can absolutely stir up old feelings. You can wonder what your life might have looked like and grieve the version of your life that never happened. That doesn’t mean your wife was a consolation prize.
But, like everything in this book, nuance has been kicked out the door.
Megan's basically the Wicked Stepmother, with all the subtlety of a pantomime villain. She’s so relentlessly horrible that I was waiting for her to spin around in a chair while stroking a white cat. It makes sense through the eyes of a frightened child; it’s bizarre coming from an adult woman, no matter how stunted from years in care she may be, who’s had a lifetime to acquire some perspective.
And that’s what I wanted from this book: perspective. I wanted to see what time had done to Dolphin, Star, and Marigold.
Jacqueline Wilson used to be so good at writing children and families who were messy, contradictory, selfish, frightened, loving, jealous, generous, traumatised, resilient, and occasionally horrible all at once. She trusted us with complicated things: poverty, neglect, abuse, grief, mental illness, family breakdown, sexuality, difficult parents, divorce. She never seemed to think we needed everything sanded down into a nice little lesson.
But once those children become adults, suddenly we get: WOMAN. TWO MEN. CHOOSE.
What happened???
I’d love to see her write an adult woman whose primary problem isn’t some mid men. Give me women with careers they care about, friendships that have survived since childhood, ambitions, weird opinions, estranged siblings, ageing parents, midlife crises, or the crushing boredom of a Tuesday.
Give me a woman who’s become invested in an absolutely deranged hobby at 25. Give me a woman going through menopause who’s taking out all her rage on her allotment committee. Give me literally anything other than WHICH MAN WILL SHE CHOOSE.
Because a love triangle and some deeply unsexy sex scenes don’t magically make a book adult.
No, babe. You’re a children’s novel wearing a fake moustache.
And the lack of nuance isn’t limited to romance. Take the tattoos. Every tattooed character can be categorised as MENTALLY UNWELL or ARSEHOLE, while bare skin's basically the mark of an angel.
"I thought tattooists were hulking great men covered in ink." "That’s the clients," I said, bristling ... "You sometimes see women with tattoos all over, and that just looks, well, bizarre."The author's thought process seems to be:
Tattoo? Suspicious.
Three tattoos? Needs therapy.
Dragon tattoo? Call the police.
Unfortunately for me, I have a dragon tattoo. And a ryūjin, which is a koi transforming into a dragon. And a koi, which is basically a future dragon in training. Apparently I’m one tattoo away from becoming the final boss of Jacqueline's nightmares. I also have a pusheen, but the author probably thinks it's a gang sign.
I'm sick of the word dragon.
There are other tattoos, Jacqueline. The tattoo shop has options. Do you... believe people only get dragon tattoos?
I swear there are fewer mentions of dragons in an entire dragon-shifter romance.
I remember reading that Marigold had around 25 tattoos as a child and thinking, TWENTY FIVE??? THAT’S HER ENTIRE BODY!!! Now I have enough tattoos myself to know that 25 isn’t exactly an astonishing number. I started counting mine, got to 25, and realised I hadn’t even covered half of them. It genuinely reads like a child trying to think of an enormous number.
But really, the tattoos are just another symptom of the same problem: everything that’s supposed to signal ADULT feels like an adult concept being viewed from a distance.
Which brings me to the dialogue.
The characters are supposed to be millennials, but half the time they sound like they’ve wandered out of an Enid Blyton book. “Don’t let’s quarrel.” WHO. WHO SAYS THAT?
Even as a child, I noticed how old fashioned the language could be. Now it’s surreal. But what makes it even funnier is the temporal whiplash of the modern references. The book occasionally remembers that we have electricity and indoor plumbing now. Netflix exists. TikTok exists. Instagram exists. Romantasy exists.
But Dolphin is still pressing the button on her phone to answer it, which immediately conjured an image of a brick that weighs more than a toddler. And the half-hearted mentions of TikTok and romantasy had me like, Jackie, who gave you the briefing??
The “getting high on drink or drugs!” lines (yes, lines, plural) nearly finished me off. Getting high on drink? DRINK?
I just know the author thinks a drug deal goes, “Hello, yes, I would like one drug please.”
Then there’s Dolphin’s job search, which feels like it was preserved in amber. She just walks into places or phones up and gets praised for having the initiative to speak to someone face-to-face.
Imagine Dolphin materialising at the nursery reception:
“Hello, I was wondering if you were hiring?”
“Have you applied online?”
“No.”
“Do you have a CV?”
“What’s a CV?”
“Do you have a DBS check?”
“…”
“References?”
“…”
“Right.”
As hilarious as this can be, like Think Again when they were phoning for Deliveroos, the lack of contemporary perspective becomes less funny when it extends to the serious subjects. The descriptions of mental illness feel dated, reducing complicated experiences to being “mad”, “unstable”, “troubled”, or “damaged”.
Likewise, Dolphin’s dyslexia feels like a permanent plot obstacle. This is a character living in a world with speech-to-text, text-to-speech, OCR, screen readers, and a million other accessibility tools. I know I’m shifting into work mode (accessibility designer here!) but I wanted to see Dolphin develop strategies and figure out what works for her to become independent in ways her younger self couldn’t have imagined.
Instead, 20 years have passed and nobody updated her character sheet.
The characters have experienced time, but they haven’t experienced development.
And that extends to the socioeconomic side of the book, which is frustrating for me because it's one of the things I loved most about JW as a child. I was a poor girl from a shitty home, and seeing girls who weren’t living neat little middle-class lives mattered so much to me. JW wrote about council houses, struggling parents, chaotic families, and imperfect lives.
But as an adult, I find it frustrating that so many of them seem trapped in those same circumstances forever. They get older, but they don’t necessarily get more.
And that’s such a shame, because she once understood that children could be complicated people. I wanted to see what happened when those complicated children became complicated adults.
At least Star gets to escape. I adored Star in the first book 🥹
I’m convinced this is setting up a sequel where Dolphin becomes Marigold. Lee becomes Michael, the father who gets pushed out. Joel becomes Mickey, the man who steps up. Dolphin recreates her mother’s mistakes.
I am going to throw myself into the sea.
There’s still something comforting about opening one of her books. But it’s also kind of insulting when the “adult” characters haven’t grown alongside the readers who loved them. So when I pick up an adult sequel and find that the characters haven’t done the same, it feels like she’s asking us to regress along with them.
Jacqueline, I adore you. But please. LET YOUR GIRLS GROW UP.
August 30, 2025
Here we go again.
I think I was too kind to Think Again last year. I wanted to be nice about Jacqueline Wilson’s first adult sequel and thought hey, maybe there’s some teething problems but her next one could be an improvement…..
It isn’t.
I LOVE The Illustrated Mum. It's always been one of my favourite Jacqueline Wilson books. I think I read it first around the age of nine, when I was fascinated with Marigold's tattoos and traumatised by the white paint scene. I've read it many times in the years since and loved it every single one. I was excited about this one in a way I wasn't about Think Again. I was apprehensive, thrilled, and itching to get my hands on it. Like the little nerd I am, I toddled to the bookshop on the 28th August and bought it at an extortionate price because I wanted so badly to see what had become of our favourite characters.
Like TA, this is basically a romance novel. There’s a half constructed love triangle with Lee the gentle family man and Joel the bad boy. Lee is the literal boy next door, he loves his little daughter Ava who he only sees on weekends and is judgmental about tattoos, which of course he has none of. Joel, meanwhile, is barely in this book but has a tattoo so we know he is a Bad Boy and has the hot sex with Dolphin she craves from Lee.
This should all have been dumped. I don’t think anyone’s here to see Dolphin’s messy love life: we want to see her family life, her relationships with Marigold and Star, which are unfortunately sorely lacking an exploration.
Marigold was barely in it. She’s in a psych ward for most of the book. The small exploration of her mental health was interesting but then we had the doctor basically info dumping about bipolar and nothing else. I would have liked a look into Marigold’s past or family. Dolphin spends a few pages wondering if she’s also bipolar but has a chat with Marigold’s magic doctor and decides she isn’t. I would have much preferred if JW ditched the almost-love-triangle and the book was Dolphin struggling with mental health and afraid she’ll end up like Marigold.
I wasn’t sure what to think of the whole mental health system representation. It was so unrealistic how involved Dr Gibbon was with Marigold’s family and how he basically became the wise old advisor for Dol. The rant from the nurse at the beginning was ridiculous and Dr Gibbon reveals his colleague has bipolar, which she manages well. I think I was supposed to do a shocked Pikachu face at this, like whatttttttttttttt what do you mean people can manage a mental illness?!!! Jacky you’ve blown my mind.
Star’s barely in it too, and Owly makes only a small cameo. I would have loved more old characters coming back rather than the new ones. Michael has a very brief couple of phone calls with Dol but the half sisters never appear or are even referred to much. Why didn’t we get Dolphin talking about her complicated relationship with the half sisters?
People have been talking a lot about JW’s attitude towards tattoos. She obviously has an old fashioned dislike of them and furthermore knows very little about them in general. Dolphin’s a tattoo artist at the beginning of the book but she has no tattoos herself. I have never seen a tattoo artist without tattoos. Every character who has tattoos in PI is either mentally ill or an asshole but Dolphin is a good person so of course she has none.
Like most people reading this book, I have tattoos. I’ve got seven, in fact. Most of my tattoos are either sentimental or just silly. I like to think JW would think I’m a hardass just because I have Kermit the Frog on my thigh.
At the end of the book Dolphin is now teaching art to kids/painting wall murals, which JW obviously thinks is a much better use of her artistic talents.
We know JW’s writing style by now so I won’t go on about the old fashioned dialogue. But it was funny to see Dolphin literally walking around businesses asking about jobs instead of going online. And it’s annoying me how convenient and wish fulfilling the plot is for the adult novels, just like the kid’s ones. Dolphin sees a poster and rings up the number and gets a wonderful summer job teaching kids art. Then she paints a mural there and what do you know, people see it and she now has a great career opportunity painting murals. She gets upset when she goes to visit Marigold so obviously the nice doctor takes her to McDonald’s and soothes her fears.
Dolphin is dyslexic, as was established in TIM. I was pleased with this because it’s a change from the bookish characters who read Madame Bovary on the Tube (looking at you, Ellie Allard). But it’s sort of just something she struggles with along the way and has absolutely no support with.
She mentions it a lot and it’s a major source of embarrassment for her. But she still listens to classic books on audio because of course she does. What’s a JW protagonist without Little Women? I think I’d die of shock if a JW character didn’t at least MENTION a classic novel.
I just thought it was clumsy and silly as an adult novel in general, much like Think Again. I feel like the secret to pleasing fans with these sequels would be a proper gritty look at these adult lives and exploring the characters we already know rather than introducing half baked love interests.
JW is probably surrounded by yes men at this point in her career so nobody is going to tell her when something is a bad idea or is messy. They know these books will sell just by existing. I saw multiple typos and name errors in here as well, which just seemed lazy.
All in all, possibly better than Think Again. I think adult Dol is much more likeable than adult Ellie but it’s all much of a muchness in the bland mess it falls into.
I hear Jacqueline is working on a third adult sequel. I will still buy and read it because I hate myself.
I think I was too kind to Think Again last year. I wanted to be nice about Jacqueline Wilson’s first adult sequel and thought hey, maybe there’s some teething problems but her next one could be an improvement…..
It isn’t.
I LOVE The Illustrated Mum. It's always been one of my favourite Jacqueline Wilson books. I think I read it first around the age of nine, when I was fascinated with Marigold's tattoos and traumatised by the white paint scene. I've read it many times in the years since and loved it every single one. I was excited about this one in a way I wasn't about Think Again. I was apprehensive, thrilled, and itching to get my hands on it. Like the little nerd I am, I toddled to the bookshop on the 28th August and bought it at an extortionate price because I wanted so badly to see what had become of our favourite characters.
Like TA, this is basically a romance novel. There’s a half constructed love triangle with Lee the gentle family man and Joel the bad boy. Lee is the literal boy next door, he loves his little daughter Ava who he only sees on weekends and is judgmental about tattoos, which of course he has none of. Joel, meanwhile, is barely in this book but has a tattoo so we know he is a Bad Boy and has the hot sex with Dolphin she craves from Lee.
This should all have been dumped. I don’t think anyone’s here to see Dolphin’s messy love life: we want to see her family life, her relationships with Marigold and Star, which are unfortunately sorely lacking an exploration.
Marigold was barely in it. She’s in a psych ward for most of the book. The small exploration of her mental health was interesting but then we had the doctor basically info dumping about bipolar and nothing else. I would have liked a look into Marigold’s past or family. Dolphin spends a few pages wondering if she’s also bipolar but has a chat with Marigold’s magic doctor and decides she isn’t. I would have much preferred if JW ditched the almost-love-triangle and the book was Dolphin struggling with mental health and afraid she’ll end up like Marigold.
I wasn’t sure what to think of the whole mental health system representation. It was so unrealistic how involved Dr Gibbon was with Marigold’s family and how he basically became the wise old advisor for Dol. The rant from the nurse at the beginning was ridiculous and Dr Gibbon reveals his colleague has bipolar, which she manages well. I think I was supposed to do a shocked Pikachu face at this, like whatttttttttttttt what do you mean people can manage a mental illness?!!! Jacky you’ve blown my mind.
Star’s barely in it too, and Owly makes only a small cameo. I would have loved more old characters coming back rather than the new ones. Michael has a very brief couple of phone calls with Dol but the half sisters never appear or are even referred to much. Why didn’t we get Dolphin talking about her complicated relationship with the half sisters?
People have been talking a lot about JW’s attitude towards tattoos. She obviously has an old fashioned dislike of them and furthermore knows very little about them in general. Dolphin’s a tattoo artist at the beginning of the book but she has no tattoos herself. I have never seen a tattoo artist without tattoos. Every character who has tattoos in PI is either mentally ill or an asshole but Dolphin is a good person so of course she has none.
Like most people reading this book, I have tattoos. I’ve got seven, in fact. Most of my tattoos are either sentimental or just silly. I like to think JW would think I’m a hardass just because I have Kermit the Frog on my thigh.
At the end of the book Dolphin is now teaching art to kids/painting wall murals, which JW obviously thinks is a much better use of her artistic talents.
We know JW’s writing style by now so I won’t go on about the old fashioned dialogue. But it was funny to see Dolphin literally walking around businesses asking about jobs instead of going online. And it’s annoying me how convenient and wish fulfilling the plot is for the adult novels, just like the kid’s ones. Dolphin sees a poster and rings up the number and gets a wonderful summer job teaching kids art. Then she paints a mural there and what do you know, people see it and she now has a great career opportunity painting murals. She gets upset when she goes to visit Marigold so obviously the nice doctor takes her to McDonald’s and soothes her fears.
Dolphin is dyslexic, as was established in TIM. I was pleased with this because it’s a change from the bookish characters who read Madame Bovary on the Tube (looking at you, Ellie Allard). But it’s sort of just something she struggles with along the way and has absolutely no support with.
She mentions it a lot and it’s a major source of embarrassment for her. But she still listens to classic books on audio because of course she does. What’s a JW protagonist without Little Women? I think I’d die of shock if a JW character didn’t at least MENTION a classic novel.
I just thought it was clumsy and silly as an adult novel in general, much like Think Again. I feel like the secret to pleasing fans with these sequels would be a proper gritty look at these adult lives and exploring the characters we already know rather than introducing half baked love interests.
JW is probably surrounded by yes men at this point in her career so nobody is going to tell her when something is a bad idea or is messy. They know these books will sell just by existing. I saw multiple typos and name errors in here as well, which just seemed lazy.
All in all, possibly better than Think Again. I think adult Dol is much more likeable than adult Ellie but it’s all much of a muchness in the bland mess it falls into.
I hear Jacqueline is working on a third adult sequel. I will still buy and read it because I hate myself.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 30, 2025
I enjoyed this more than Think Again, but it’s possibly just because my expectations had shifted with this book.
The issues that plagued Think Again are still prevalent in Picture Imperfect (one dimensional characters, rushed ambiguous endings, plot points that go no-where) and I would still argue that this isn’t necessarily written as an adult novel but more for teens/young adult. However, there is a certain level of nostalgia that a Jacqueline Wilson book brings, and despite all the glaring flaws with the book I had a pretty good time reading it and it’s pulled me out of a reading slump
The issues that plagued Think Again are still prevalent in Picture Imperfect (one dimensional characters, rushed ambiguous endings, plot points that go no-where) and I would still argue that this isn’t necessarily written as an adult novel but more for teens/young adult. However, there is a certain level of nostalgia that a Jacqueline Wilson book brings, and despite all the glaring flaws with the book I had a pretty good time reading it and it’s pulled me out of a reading slump
September 7, 2025
I was SO EXCITED that I bought this the second it was available to purchase. And read it within two days. But just like ‘Think Again’ I was left disappointed.
The ending is atrocious.
Dolphin is BROKE, living in a tiny bedsit but is now pregnant not knowing if it’s Lee or Joel’s baby, and that’s it???
THE SEX SCENES WERE INSUFFERABLE AND UNCOMFORTABLE. JACKY PLEASE STOP.
THE 2025 REFERENCES WERE CRINGE. ‘Tiktok’ ‘Situationship’ ‘Harry Styles’ ‘Taylor Swift’ ‘Saltburn’ ugh.
I wanted more about Marigold. More about Star. Mickey? Michael even?
It started off so well, I was intrigued at the start with Marigold being on hard drugs and then put in a mental hospital, but then what?
It definitely didn’t have the same feel that The Illustrated Mum had.
I love you Jacky but I will NOT be reading any more of your ‘adult’ books. Please stop ruining these gems with terrible sequels.
The ending is atrocious.
Dolphin is BROKE, living in a tiny bedsit but is now pregnant not knowing if it’s Lee or Joel’s baby, and that’s it???
THE SEX SCENES WERE INSUFFERABLE AND UNCOMFORTABLE. JACKY PLEASE STOP.
THE 2025 REFERENCES WERE CRINGE. ‘Tiktok’ ‘Situationship’ ‘Harry Styles’ ‘Taylor Swift’ ‘Saltburn’ ugh.
I wanted more about Marigold. More about Star. Mickey? Michael even?
It started off so well, I was intrigued at the start with Marigold being on hard drugs and then put in a mental hospital, but then what?
It definitely didn’t have the same feel that The Illustrated Mum had.
I love you Jacky but I will NOT be reading any more of your ‘adult’ books. Please stop ruining these gems with terrible sequels.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 31, 2025
it makes me sad to rate this low but i bought this wanting to know more about star, dolphin and marigold but the book was just about dolphins love life.
also - the tiktok, romantasy references are going to age SO badly. they really threw me out of the story😭
2 stars for nostalgia and for how easy it is to read a JW book.
also - the tiktok, romantasy references are going to age SO badly. they really threw me out of the story😭
2 stars for nostalgia and for how easy it is to read a JW book.
August 29, 2025
JW is so easy-to-read and nostalgic, and there were some great glimmers of interest in this book, especially at the beginning.
And then it meandered, plateaued, and fell off a cliff.
It would have been great if she could have focused far more on Star, Olly, her dad, Dolphin’s issues, even Marigold. But instead you could have called it Dolphin’s Summer Job.
Even Marigold was basically forgotten about half way through.
JW has a captive market - after the lackluster think again, why has she wasted another opportunity?
And then it meandered, plateaued, and fell off a cliff.
It would have been great if she could have focused far more on Star, Olly, her dad, Dolphin’s issues, even Marigold. But instead you could have called it Dolphin’s Summer Job.
Even Marigold was basically forgotten about half way through.
JW has a captive market - after the lackluster think again, why has she wasted another opportunity?
September 7, 2025
Feel bad giving the legend JW one star when her books were such a huge part of my childhood but these "adult" books she's writing are genuinely atrocious, I'm sorry. Will I still read the next one she invetably brings out? Of course I will.
August 30, 2025
Warm and nostalgic. It’s so lovely to read about the lives of Jacqueline Wilson’s characters all grown-up. This was an easy and enjoyable read.
September 24, 2025
Written as if Dolphin is sometimes 12 and other times 62, definitely not 33. Also felt super dated with its discussion of mental illness. Made me cringe too much to properly enjoy it, also the male characters were just so icky. I don’t think Jacqueline Wilson has the right voice to write convincingly in this demographic unfortunately
October 7, 2025
I actually went to an event with Jacqueline Wilson and got my copy of Picture Imperfect there. I paid full price for it, which for me was kind of a little tribute. When I was a kid, most of her books I read were the ones my friend lent me, and even her first adult book, Think Again, I just borrowed from the library. So even though I had a feeling this one wouldn’t blow me away, I wanted to support her properly this time. Her books honestly meant the world to me growing up. The Illustrated Mum especially — as someone who grew up with an alcoholic parent, I’d never felt so seen. That one will always be my number one, no question.
But yeah… Picture Imperfect was a letdown. And now that I’ve paid full price, I don’t even feel bad saying it. I’m giving it one star, sadly.
The ending? Awful. The whole “pregnancy fixes everything” storyline made me cringe. It felt lazy and just… outdated. Total Marigold vibes — broke, unsure who the dad is, no plan, no direction. I would’ve been genuinely happier if she’d just had an abortion. I once read that when a character randomly gets pregnant, it’s a sign the writer didn’t know what else to do with them, and that’s exactly how this felt. Considering how interesting her childhood story was, there was so much to unpack about how that shaped her as an adult. Her family stuff, her dad (who’s barely there at all), her sister — all of it could’ve been explored way more.
And don’t get me started on Joel. He was just weird. We meet him getting a cliché tattoo, then suddenly he’s naked, then suddenly he’s some scammy flirt playing an old lady for her money? Like… what? Are we supposed to think he’s that irresistible? I just didn’t buy it. Lee wasn’t any better. I know the story was meant to be touching with his daughter Ava and all that, but I just didn’t care. Dol barely knew them, yet she’s convincing herself to stay for the kid’s sake? Come on. Maybe it’s just me because I’m not super into kids, but it didn’t feel real at all.
And Dr Gibbon? No way. The idea of an NHS doctor having time to go to McDonald’s and basically give a free therapy session to someone who’s not even his patient — that’s straight-up fantasy.
Overall, I just feel like Jacqueline Wilson did Dol dirty. I get that she likes to write about real people with messy lives, but this one just didn’t hit. The plot was weak, the characters were flat, and the ending annoyed me. I really wanted to love this book — mainly because of how much her writing meant to me when I was younger — but Picture Imperfect just didn’t have that spark.
But yeah… Picture Imperfect was a letdown. And now that I’ve paid full price, I don’t even feel bad saying it. I’m giving it one star, sadly.
The ending? Awful. The whole “pregnancy fixes everything” storyline made me cringe. It felt lazy and just… outdated. Total Marigold vibes — broke, unsure who the dad is, no plan, no direction. I would’ve been genuinely happier if she’d just had an abortion. I once read that when a character randomly gets pregnant, it’s a sign the writer didn’t know what else to do with them, and that’s exactly how this felt. Considering how interesting her childhood story was, there was so much to unpack about how that shaped her as an adult. Her family stuff, her dad (who’s barely there at all), her sister — all of it could’ve been explored way more.
And don’t get me started on Joel. He was just weird. We meet him getting a cliché tattoo, then suddenly he’s naked, then suddenly he’s some scammy flirt playing an old lady for her money? Like… what? Are we supposed to think he’s that irresistible? I just didn’t buy it. Lee wasn’t any better. I know the story was meant to be touching with his daughter Ava and all that, but I just didn’t care. Dol barely knew them, yet she’s convincing herself to stay for the kid’s sake? Come on. Maybe it’s just me because I’m not super into kids, but it didn’t feel real at all.
And Dr Gibbon? No way. The idea of an NHS doctor having time to go to McDonald’s and basically give a free therapy session to someone who’s not even his patient — that’s straight-up fantasy.
Overall, I just feel like Jacqueline Wilson did Dol dirty. I get that she likes to write about real people with messy lives, but this one just didn’t hit. The plot was weak, the characters were flat, and the ending annoyed me. I really wanted to love this book — mainly because of how much her writing meant to me when I was younger — but Picture Imperfect just didn’t have that spark.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 19, 2025
I haven't been so full of feeling when reading a book in a while, so that's a positive, but not when the overwhelming feeling is frustration. This book was just so completely pointless when it all came down to it. It feels weird criticizing a Jacqueline Wilson book for bad writing, because when I was a kid reading her books they were always so well received critically, so popular in the bookshops, really aspirational for a little girl who wanted to grow up to be a writer. And even more than that, when I saw this book was being released, I did a quick read of The Illustrated Mum as an adult, and it's an amazing book, a really good depiction of neglect and mental illness from a child's perspective. So how did this book end up like this?
My issues:
1. The love triangle: I'm a veteran of the post-Twilight years, where every protagonist was struggling with a love triangle and every YA reader was struggling with reading them. So over the years, I've done some thinking about love triangles, and what makes a love triangle actually work. If it's a story that wants to be a bit more than 'two hot guys fight over our self-insert main character', then the two love interests need to represent something just that bit more. So like in The Hunger Games, where Katniss is bouncing between Gale and Peeta, but they always represent different, wider choices. Ordinary life in District 12 versus the chaos and intensity of the Capitol and the arena. Private choices versus being publicly told what to do and how to do it. Revenge versus healing. I didn't even like that love triangle much, but it works on a slightly deeper level because when Katniss is being torn between them both, she's also making decisions about who she wants to be and how she's going to approach the whole wider situation she's in.
This love triangle didn't even have as much depth as some of those YA books back in the 2010s. Lee made sense, he represented security, family, stability, at the cost to herself, I guess, but Joel represented good sex, which isn't really a deep theme? Especially when The Illustrated Mum almost had a familial, platonic love triangle, where Dol was caught between Marigold and Star. We could have seen the same thing here, maybe a Dol caught between her mum and sister again, but in an adult setting. Or her love interests could have represented something that addressed some of those themes, like one seeing her as an independent person and the other one valuing family and so unwittingly pulling her back to contact with Marigold. Maybe Oliver is straight and she's pulled between someone who knows all about her childhood but supports her because of this, and someone brand new who sees her as an individual while equally not understanding why she is the way she is. I don’t know. Something stronger than this. It didn’t even resolve convincingly or in a satisfying way.
2. No characters from The Illustrated Mum: So we've met this complicated, messy family of Marigold, Star and Dolphin. Throughout the first book we meet Oliver and Mickey. Then we meet Michael at the end. That's an interesting set of characters who could have featured in this new book. Marigold, Star and Dolphin do appear in Picture Imperfect, though Star in particular doesn't appear enough.
Oliver appears for about half a chapter, but is mentioned frequently as someone who remains in Dol's life. I didn't mind that too much maybe, it was reflective of adult friendships and done realistically. On the other hand, for the sake of nostalgia-bait fiction which was already doing some somewhat unbelievable shit (no police checks at all on these teachers working out of this random eccentric woman's house!), maybe it might have been nice to see more of him.
The people we missed out on were Mickey and Michael. It would have been interesting to see how they slot into the family's life. They both presented as flawed but somewhat good intentioned in The Illustrated Mum, so it would have been very interesting to see how that played out as and when these long-lost daughters have grown into adults. Michael and Dol's resolution at the end of The Illustrated Mum involved Dol seeing that her father was also second-best, something she'd struggled with throughout the whole book. So seeing him treat her as third-best at the end of this one was disappointing and cheapened what had been a clever piece of writing in the first book.
If Picture Imperfect wasn't going to actually engage with the themes and characters from The Illustrated Mum, it should have just been a standalone.
3. Zero character growth: Marigold kind of grows a bit, but that's off-screen and underdeveloped. She's a woman in her sixties who has suffered significant childhood trauma, serious mental illness and addiction, who has seriously neglected her own children, and there's a very very loose sense that for the first time here, she's actually going to start fixing her mistakes, using a substitute daughter to try to finally make a change, while still neglecting her actual children. That's an interesting story, but we as readers aren't given the opportunity to really explore that.
Star I guess has a bit of growth, using her husband and her new middle-class status to escape the trauma of her childhood, after clawing her way out of it. She's just had a baby, which can be an emotional and challenging time for a woman who has a difficult relationship with her own mother and history. She’s unconvinced that she’s entirely in love with her husband. That's another interesting story, but again, it takes place off-screen.
Dol is the one we actually follow, and she literally has no growth, which is the fundamental issue with this story. A novel should, to some extent, feature a character who grows and changes following the events of the story. Maybe if it's a bit more literary, you can get away with subverting these tropes, but this book doesn't even bother. We meet Dol again aged 33; she meets Lee and Ava; is offered a new life with Star; , gets a job teaching children art; meets Joel; .
So like, in theory, okay, there's a story there at the very end, maybe. But this happens in literally the last chapter, so don't bother getting too invested, because it just sort of ends before we can delve into any of the implications of what has just happened.
And in fact, when I think about it, Dol just ends up in the same cycle she was caught up previously, despite the narrative trying to convince us this is a happy ending.
AND if anything, she’s actively let her own trauma harm another child in the same way she was hurt, with it never being addressed or acknowledged!
4. Poorly written child characters: I could tolerate this from anyone else, but you are literally Jacqueline Wilson. Not even elaborating on this.
Things I Liked
1. That scene with Star and Dolphin in the hotel: If there'd been more of this! These little glimpses into their relationship as adults, and how they remain close to each other. Star remains the more interesting of the two sisters, but some of that also comes from the fact we as the reader never get into her head. It frustrated me that Dol wouldn’t listen to her, and maybe that’s me being the older sister too. But Dol kept thinking that Star only wanted her in Scotland to act as free childcare, when like, girl, think about it. She wants you there because she wants you safe and with her, and away from Marigold. The childcare is an excuse. But even by the end of the novel, Dol hasn’t copped this.
2. Dol in the first half: I actually enjoyed the first half of the novel, though a little warily, because I'd seen the reviews. Still, I was hopeful, because the first half was an engaging description and character study of a woman who is beyond young-adulthood, but can't make it into full adulthood because of significant childhood neglect. Her childish thoughts and naivety made perfect sense in the context of what she had been through. Her inability to read was a good example of this, recurring representation of how neglect can cause lifelong harm and potential disability.
3. Dol's passion for art: This was something I used to always like in Jacqueline Wilson's books, how she could write a character's interest in so well. I still remember Lola Rose and her scrapbooking and the little girl in The Suitcase Kid with her Sylvanian Family rabbit. She does the same with Dol and her art here, that sense of love and passion for a hobby, how it just so naturally is a part of her. Maybe I was slightly unfair in Point 3 in my negatives, because there is one little sense of growth we see in Dol, and that's how she goes from her art being used to represent something that is her mother's, and how it then goes on to represent something that is her's. But I still think the is a stupid idea.
So overall, this book was a waste of time, because nothing actually happened in it, we didn’t see the characters we wanted to see, and nothing changed by the end of it. I think it had potential in the first half, but by the time she began teaching art and met Joel, I had lost pretty much all interest. The ending is unsatisfying, the new characters aren’t overly engaging and Dol herself is beyond frustrating. Although this is the adult-oriented book in the series, it is actually The Illustrated Mum that was the much better written of the two, even to me who read it for the first time as a just-turned thirty year old.
My issues:
1. The love triangle: I'm a veteran of the post-Twilight years, where every protagonist was struggling with a love triangle and every YA reader was struggling with reading them. So over the years, I've done some thinking about love triangles, and what makes a love triangle actually work. If it's a story that wants to be a bit more than 'two hot guys fight over our self-insert main character', then the two love interests need to represent something just that bit more. So like in The Hunger Games, where Katniss is bouncing between Gale and Peeta, but they always represent different, wider choices. Ordinary life in District 12 versus the chaos and intensity of the Capitol and the arena. Private choices versus being publicly told what to do and how to do it. Revenge versus healing. I didn't even like that love triangle much, but it works on a slightly deeper level because when Katniss is being torn between them both, she's also making decisions about who she wants to be and how she's going to approach the whole wider situation she's in.
This love triangle didn't even have as much depth as some of those YA books back in the 2010s. Lee made sense, he represented security, family, stability, at the cost to herself, I guess, but Joel represented good sex, which isn't really a deep theme? Especially when The Illustrated Mum almost had a familial, platonic love triangle, where Dol was caught between Marigold and Star. We could have seen the same thing here, maybe a Dol caught between her mum and sister again, but in an adult setting. Or her love interests could have represented something that addressed some of those themes, like one seeing her as an independent person and the other one valuing family and so unwittingly pulling her back to contact with Marigold. Maybe Oliver is straight and she's pulled between someone who knows all about her childhood but supports her because of this, and someone brand new who sees her as an individual while equally not understanding why she is the way she is. I don’t know. Something stronger than this. It didn’t even resolve convincingly or in a satisfying way.
2. No characters from The Illustrated Mum: So we've met this complicated, messy family of Marigold, Star and Dolphin. Throughout the first book we meet Oliver and Mickey. Then we meet Michael at the end. That's an interesting set of characters who could have featured in this new book. Marigold, Star and Dolphin do appear in Picture Imperfect, though Star in particular doesn't appear enough.
Oliver appears for about half a chapter, but is mentioned frequently as someone who remains in Dol's life. I didn't mind that too much maybe, it was reflective of adult friendships and done realistically. On the other hand, for the sake of nostalgia-bait fiction which was already doing some somewhat unbelievable shit (no police checks at all on these teachers working out of this random eccentric woman's house!), maybe it might have been nice to see more of him.
The people we missed out on were Mickey and Michael. It would have been interesting to see how they slot into the family's life. They both presented as flawed but somewhat good intentioned in The Illustrated Mum, so it would have been very interesting to see how that played out as and when these long-lost daughters have grown into adults. Michael and Dol's resolution at the end of The Illustrated Mum involved Dol seeing that her father was also second-best, something she'd struggled with throughout the whole book. So seeing him treat her as third-best at the end of this one was disappointing and cheapened what had been a clever piece of writing in the first book.
If Picture Imperfect wasn't going to actually engage with the themes and characters from The Illustrated Mum, it should have just been a standalone.
3. Zero character growth: Marigold kind of grows a bit, but that's off-screen and underdeveloped. She's a woman in her sixties who has suffered significant childhood trauma, serious mental illness and addiction, who has seriously neglected her own children, and there's a very very loose sense that for the first time here, she's actually going to start fixing her mistakes, using a substitute daughter to try to finally make a change, while still neglecting her actual children. That's an interesting story, but we as readers aren't given the opportunity to really explore that.
Star I guess has a bit of growth, using her husband and her new middle-class status to escape the trauma of her childhood, after clawing her way out of it. She's just had a baby, which can be an emotional and challenging time for a woman who has a difficult relationship with her own mother and history. She’s unconvinced that she’s entirely in love with her husband. That's another interesting story, but again, it takes place off-screen.
Dol is the one we actually follow, and she literally has no growth, which is the fundamental issue with this story. A novel should, to some extent, feature a character who grows and changes following the events of the story. Maybe if it's a bit more literary, you can get away with subverting these tropes, but this book doesn't even bother. We meet Dol again aged 33; she meets Lee and Ava; is offered a new life with Star; , gets a job teaching children art; meets Joel; .
So like, in theory, okay, there's a story there at the very end, maybe. But this happens in literally the last chapter, so don't bother getting too invested, because it just sort of ends before we can delve into any of the implications of what has just happened.
And in fact, when I think about it, Dol just ends up in the same cycle she was caught up previously, despite the narrative trying to convince us this is a happy ending.
AND if anything, she’s actively let her own trauma harm another child in the same way she was hurt, with it never being addressed or acknowledged!
4. Poorly written child characters: I could tolerate this from anyone else, but you are literally Jacqueline Wilson. Not even elaborating on this.
Things I Liked
1. That scene with Star and Dolphin in the hotel: If there'd been more of this! These little glimpses into their relationship as adults, and how they remain close to each other. Star remains the more interesting of the two sisters, but some of that also comes from the fact we as the reader never get into her head. It frustrated me that Dol wouldn’t listen to her, and maybe that’s me being the older sister too. But Dol kept thinking that Star only wanted her in Scotland to act as free childcare, when like, girl, think about it. She wants you there because she wants you safe and with her, and away from Marigold. The childcare is an excuse. But even by the end of the novel, Dol hasn’t copped this.
2. Dol in the first half: I actually enjoyed the first half of the novel, though a little warily, because I'd seen the reviews. Still, I was hopeful, because the first half was an engaging description and character study of a woman who is beyond young-adulthood, but can't make it into full adulthood because of significant childhood neglect. Her childish thoughts and naivety made perfect sense in the context of what she had been through. Her inability to read was a good example of this, recurring representation of how neglect can cause lifelong harm and potential disability.
3. Dol's passion for art: This was something I used to always like in Jacqueline Wilson's books, how she could write a character's interest in so well. I still remember Lola Rose and her scrapbooking and the little girl in The Suitcase Kid with her Sylvanian Family rabbit. She does the same with Dol and her art here, that sense of love and passion for a hobby, how it just so naturally is a part of her. Maybe I was slightly unfair in Point 3 in my negatives, because there is one little sense of growth we see in Dol, and that's how she goes from her art being used to represent something that is her mother's, and how it then goes on to represent something that is her's. But I still think the is a stupid idea.
So overall, this book was a waste of time, because nothing actually happened in it, we didn’t see the characters we wanted to see, and nothing changed by the end of it. I think it had potential in the first half, but by the time she began teaching art and met Joel, I had lost pretty much all interest. The ending is unsatisfying, the new characters aren’t overly engaging and Dol herself is beyond frustrating. Although this is the adult-oriented book in the series, it is actually The Illustrated Mum that was the much better written of the two, even to me who read it for the first time as a just-turned thirty year old.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 27, 2025
’He'd given me the greatest gift I could ever have asked for: a sense of myself’
Picture Imperfect is the adult sequel to one of my favourite children’s books of all time, The Illustrated Mum. I cannot begin to count how may times I read it over my childhood, and to this day I can still remember all of the story beats. So when I found out Wilson was writing a sequel to it, I was beyond excited.
This book follows a now 33-year-old Dolphin as she learns how to have confidence in herself, and discover what she wants from the rest of her life. Along the way we of course get to see how her sister Star and mother Marigold are doing, as well as experiencing some new faces in Dolphin’s journey.
Unfortunately, as affected by nostalgia as I may have been while reading this, I wasn’t completely blind to its many flaws.
Picture Imperfect sadly reads a lot like its predecessor, insomuch as it reads like a children’s book. Despite featuring sex scenes and bad language, the writing style and prose still very much follow the expository, childish nature of Wilson’s children’s books. It seems to me that little effort was put in to make this book read like an adult one, and instead adult themes were just included on top of an immature prose. This did not work at all, and was made all the worse by Dolphin’s personality and actions throughout the narrative.
Dolphin, despite being 33, acts far closer to someone in their mid 20s - and I say that as someone in their early 20s! She is overwhelmed with quite literally every task put in front of her, and while her problems with Marigold were certainly understandable, her reactions to her work, relationships and communications with Star were not. Her constant jealousy at Star’s success was very strange, and I found her resentment to be quite off-putting. She consistently made poor choices when it came to her jobs, and her lack of tact when talking with people was pretty infuriating. I just do not understand how a fully-grown adult could act so ridiculously, and it all came across as very unrealistic.
Despite my issues, I still enjoyed this story. It brought me a lot of joy to be back with characters I loved as a kid, and Wilson remains the absolute best at describing creativity and imagination. Overall, Picture Imperfect gets 3.5/5 stars.
Picture Imperfect is the adult sequel to one of my favourite children’s books of all time, The Illustrated Mum. I cannot begin to count how may times I read it over my childhood, and to this day I can still remember all of the story beats. So when I found out Wilson was writing a sequel to it, I was beyond excited.
This book follows a now 33-year-old Dolphin as she learns how to have confidence in herself, and discover what she wants from the rest of her life. Along the way we of course get to see how her sister Star and mother Marigold are doing, as well as experiencing some new faces in Dolphin’s journey.
Unfortunately, as affected by nostalgia as I may have been while reading this, I wasn’t completely blind to its many flaws.
Picture Imperfect sadly reads a lot like its predecessor, insomuch as it reads like a children’s book. Despite featuring sex scenes and bad language, the writing style and prose still very much follow the expository, childish nature of Wilson’s children’s books. It seems to me that little effort was put in to make this book read like an adult one, and instead adult themes were just included on top of an immature prose. This did not work at all, and was made all the worse by Dolphin’s personality and actions throughout the narrative.
Dolphin, despite being 33, acts far closer to someone in their mid 20s - and I say that as someone in their early 20s! She is overwhelmed with quite literally every task put in front of her, and while her problems with Marigold were certainly understandable, her reactions to her work, relationships and communications with Star were not. Her constant jealousy at Star’s success was very strange, and I found her resentment to be quite off-putting. She consistently made poor choices when it came to her jobs, and her lack of tact when talking with people was pretty infuriating. I just do not understand how a fully-grown adult could act so ridiculously, and it all came across as very unrealistic.
Despite my issues, I still enjoyed this story. It brought me a lot of joy to be back with characters I loved as a kid, and Wilson remains the absolute best at describing creativity and imagination. Overall, Picture Imperfect gets 3.5/5 stars.
September 19, 2025
Again, a very nostalgic read and I can’t say no to a Jackie Wilson book. However, I found main character Dolphin annoying & felt I knew how it was going to end half way through reading..
February 21, 2026
1 star for quality, 5 stars for enjoyment.
Jacqueline Wilson continues to write in a strangely readable mutation of Blytonian, but these “adult” sequels also carry with them the sense that her characters have all just learned to swear, and are using this newfound language to rebel against readers’ expectations of them. It makes for very funny, Frankenstein-esque sentences, where Dolphin’s internal dialogue veers from jolly hockeysticks to a pretty pathetic attempt at gritty “streetwise” dialect. One example is when Dolphin finds her mother’s drug addict boyfriend, Rick, in bed with a much younger woman, a thinly sketched character complete with a missing tooth who perfectly embodies Wilson’s almost pitiable attempts to write about worlds completely beyond her understanding. Rick tells Dolphin:
“‘Here, lay off! Don’t you get on your high horse with me! Marigold’s sodded off. She’s got some bee in her bonnet about your sister and she’s gone to Scotland or Wales or whatever to see her. Who knows if she’s ever coming back?’”
Are we seriously to believe this is something that would come out of this character’s mouth? Luckily for Jacqueline Wilson, she has constructed a world for herself where loyal readers let her get away with it. As I say, too, it can be very, very funny, so I’m not complaining. However, to give this book more than a star would be an insult to so many of the amazing books I have read recently.
One more thing: Dolphin’s understanding of dyslexia and bipolar disorder is both incredibly reductive and insensitive for the most part. I get that her relationship with the two are based on her upbringing, and other, sensible characters are meant to offer more intelligent and empathic insights to the reality of living with both, but I didn’t feel it was enough to balance out Dolphin’s idiocy. And for a writer with so many readers, this could pose a problem.
Overall, backwards, outdated and hilarious, just like Think Again. Whilst I think she’s better at children’s books - and indeed, these books don’t feel much different - I still hope Jacqueline Wilson keeps releasing these “adult” sequels. I will read them to the bitter end.
Jacqueline Wilson continues to write in a strangely readable mutation of Blytonian, but these “adult” sequels also carry with them the sense that her characters have all just learned to swear, and are using this newfound language to rebel against readers’ expectations of them. It makes for very funny, Frankenstein-esque sentences, where Dolphin’s internal dialogue veers from jolly hockeysticks to a pretty pathetic attempt at gritty “streetwise” dialect. One example is when Dolphin finds her mother’s drug addict boyfriend, Rick, in bed with a much younger woman, a thinly sketched character complete with a missing tooth who perfectly embodies Wilson’s almost pitiable attempts to write about worlds completely beyond her understanding. Rick tells Dolphin:
“‘Here, lay off! Don’t you get on your high horse with me! Marigold’s sodded off. She’s got some bee in her bonnet about your sister and she’s gone to Scotland or Wales or whatever to see her. Who knows if she’s ever coming back?’”
Are we seriously to believe this is something that would come out of this character’s mouth? Luckily for Jacqueline Wilson, she has constructed a world for herself where loyal readers let her get away with it. As I say, too, it can be very, very funny, so I’m not complaining. However, to give this book more than a star would be an insult to so many of the amazing books I have read recently.
One more thing: Dolphin’s understanding of dyslexia and bipolar disorder is both incredibly reductive and insensitive for the most part. I get that her relationship with the two are based on her upbringing, and other, sensible characters are meant to offer more intelligent and empathic insights to the reality of living with both, but I didn’t feel it was enough to balance out Dolphin’s idiocy. And for a writer with so many readers, this could pose a problem.
Overall, backwards, outdated and hilarious, just like Think Again. Whilst I think she’s better at children’s books - and indeed, these books don’t feel much different - I still hope Jacqueline Wilson keeps releasing these “adult” sequels. I will read them to the bitter end.
September 4, 2025
Another difficult read from a concept that I want so badly to enjoy. The writing just feels childish and the characters very 2D making them impossible to connect with. Jaqueline is the queen but these ‘adult’ novels are the jesters. No doubt I’ll still buy the next one though!
September 1, 2025
not even nostalgia could carry me through by the end :(
September 7, 2025
I definitely preferred the Illustrated Mum and do think Jacqueline Wilson is much better at children books, however it was much better than Think Again.
The Illustrated Mum had a much more powerful message and I actually think that this book was more child friendly minus the sex scenes!
Picture Imperfect was a nice wrap up, I liked the story of Dolphin trying to figure herself out and who she was or wasn’t. However, it would have also been nice to have a focus on Marigold again and what happened when she left the hospital.
I’ve been starting to listen to books on audio as well as reading them physically, and don’t know if this is making me rate things a little higher?
The Illustrated Mum had a much more powerful message and I actually think that this book was more child friendly minus the sex scenes!
Picture Imperfect was a nice wrap up, I liked the story of Dolphin trying to figure herself out and who she was or wasn’t. However, it would have also been nice to have a focus on Marigold again and what happened when she left the hospital.
I’ve been starting to listen to books on audio as well as reading them physically, and don’t know if this is making me rate things a little higher?
October 27, 2025
3.5 stars. Perhaps it was naïve of me to not expect that the sequel to the children’s story of a bi-polar lady painting herself white to hide her tattoos would make me viscerally uncomfortable.
November 9, 2025
it didn’t quite have the same spark as the illustrated mum. the story had potential, but somewhere along the way it lost its heart. i felt bad for dol though. seeing her at 33, stuck in a loop of old habits, she really did grow up to be her mum. the nostalgia is there, but it didn’t hit the way i hoped it would.
January 11, 2026
Book club choice: nostalgic, pleasant read but everyone did think I was reading a children’s book…!
October 18, 2025
my reals know how much of a Jacqueline wilson purist i was as a child, so reading her book for adults made me sooo emo !!although she couldn’t quite shake off that children’s fiction narrative voice this was still so fun and nostalgic jw no one does it like u x
August 4, 2026
I'm surprised the reviews are so scathing because to me, this is basically the same as Writers & Lovers by Lily King which I read recently since I was curious as to why it was so popular. I suppose the reception is different because Jacqueline Wilson's readerbase is probably a bit more literary. I find Wilson's writing style very easy to read and nostalgic so I liked it anyhow.
Read
October 27, 2025I liked this more than the other one but it does feel like a plunge of cold water to read all the mental health crises in this book in stark adult terms. I didn’t love Dolphin as a kid and I don’t love her as an adult but after a month of sitting on it I think the way she’s written is probably how she would have turned out. The fact I wanted better for her is irrelevant. It would have been interesting to read from Star’s perspective I think.
July 11, 2025
the NOSTALGIA omg
i absolutely adored diving back into the world of The Illustrated Mum - Dolphin, Star and Marigold (& Oli 🥺🥺🥺). it brought all the nostalgia whilst still being interesting enough as an adult book to keep me hooked. i could not put this down.
i was worried with The Illustrated Mum being such an iconic book, that it would be hard to match. but i thoroughly enjoyed reading about all the characters grown up, and about their very adult worries and problems. Jacqueline Wilson’s representation of mental health is brilliant, and she covers some very important issues, especially being a woman growing up and all the worries that come with that.
i have to admit, i will never get used to there being so many swear words and references to sex in a JW book, but it really did read like an adult book i would read and enjoy.
all in all, i loved. please give us more JW sequels because i would LOVE to see an adult sequel to My Sister Jodie, Lola Rose and all the other classics we all grew up with and loved so dearly.
treasure Jacqueline Wilson at all costs.
**thank you so much Bantam Books for my advanced gifted copy, grateful doesn’t cover it.
i absolutely adored diving back into the world of The Illustrated Mum - Dolphin, Star and Marigold (& Oli 🥺🥺🥺). it brought all the nostalgia whilst still being interesting enough as an adult book to keep me hooked. i could not put this down.
i was worried with The Illustrated Mum being such an iconic book, that it would be hard to match. but i thoroughly enjoyed reading about all the characters grown up, and about their very adult worries and problems. Jacqueline Wilson’s representation of mental health is brilliant, and she covers some very important issues, especially being a woman growing up and all the worries that come with that.
i have to admit, i will never get used to there being so many swear words and references to sex in a JW book, but it really did read like an adult book i would read and enjoy.
all in all, i loved. please give us more JW sequels because i would LOVE to see an adult sequel to My Sister Jodie, Lola Rose and all the other classics we all grew up with and loved so dearly.
treasure Jacqueline Wilson at all costs.
**thank you so much Bantam Books for my advanced gifted copy, grateful doesn’t cover it.
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