Thursday 9 June 2016

London Belongs To Us by Sarra Manning

LONDON
A city of eight million people. Eight million lives. Eight million stories. 
This is just one of them.

Published by Hot Key Books in June 2016
Pages - 272
Summary
Seventeen-year-old Sunny's always been a little bit of a pushover. But when she's sent a picture of her boyfriend kissing another girl, she knows she's got to act. What follows is a mad, twelve-hour dash around London - starting at 8pm in Crystal Palace (so far away from civilisation you can't even get the Tube there) then sweeping through Camden, Shoreditch, Soho, Kensington, Notting Hill . . . and ending up at 8am in Alexandra Palace.
Along the way Sunny meets a whole host of characters she never dreamed she'd have anything in common with - least of all the devilishly handsome (and somewhat vain) French 'twins' (they're really cousins) Jean Luc and Vic. But as this love-letter to London shows, a city is only a sum of its parts, and really it's the people living there who make up its life and soul. And, as Sunny discovers, everyone - from friends, apparent-enemies, famous bands and even rickshaw drivers - is willing to help a girl on a mission to get her romantic retribution.
*****
This is actually my first Sara Manning book and I want to give myself a damn good talking to about not reading any of her books before, because this book is BRILLIANT!
Where do I start as there is so much to love about this book? 
I adored the concept behind it. A twelve hour journey around London stopping at all the beautiful places in the city. It made me proud to be British. In my head I was singing this and waving my flag!
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At the beginning of each chapter we get a guide to each town with all the bits of gossips you wouldn't get from a tourist guide. They were such a wonderful accompaniment to the story itself. 
I loved Sunny! It was great to see a  mixed race character in the lead & how she was treated in different settings. I was nodding my head at the scene where she was the only person of colour in the room, as I've been in that situation with a mixed race friend and felt how uncomfortable it was for them. It was great to see how her attitude to her boyfriend and her life itself change as the story progressed. 
Vic and Jean-Luc were entertaining. They had such an enigma about them to begin with that it was brilliant to see they were just two squabbling cousins behind it.
The viral YouTube scene was just fabulous and so fitting for today's young adult market. Nearly every teen dreams of being in  a viral video and being discovered.   
This book is fun, light and summery, giving us a whirlwind tour of London at it's best. 

1 comment:

  1. WOW Great review this is actually the first time I hear about this book and author, and this one looks and sounds absolutely fun and entertaining! Now I really want too check out this book and author after reading your review and I absolutely love that there is diversity in this book as well! Thank you for your awesome post.

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