Claire says: OMG what a FAB read!

Okay, so I don't do teen cool very well but it has been an extraordinarly long time since I was 17 - the age of Della, the main character, in Keris Stainton's debut novel 'Della says OMG!'.
In fact it has been 17 years since I was 17 and even when I was, I wasn't as cool as Della and her friends - who actually made me want to be a teenager again.
I should say I've 'known' Keris for about four years, since my early days writing Rainy Days and Tuesdays when she was the esteemed leader of an online writing group I used.
We have a few things in common - a slight obsessions with Matt Goss, two children of roughly the same age (Her baby boy Joe was born about 6 weeks before Cara so we shared much pregnancy chatter), a love of Marian Keyes and the need to blog alot.
What Keris has that I don't though is the ability to get inside the teenage mind and create YA books that people will actually want to read and not laugh at.
Here's the blurby bit: Della’s over the moon when she kisses her long-standing crush at a party – but then she discovers her diary has disappeared...
When scans of embarrassing pages are sent to her mobile and appear on Facebook, Della’s distraught – how can she enjoy her first proper romance when someone, somewhere, knows all her deepest, darkest secrets?

Della Says OMG! is a fast paced, laugh out loud read which made me feel like a young thing again. It's fresh, sharp and on the money from start to finish. It doesn't patronise the reader - and it has enough mystery to keep you wanting more.
It even made me form a crush on a 17 year old boy (Della's long-standing crush) which I'm pretty sure is immoral if not illegal.
 
But I'm glad to say I heartily recommend to teenagers of all ages... yes, even you - which is a relief but you always do kind of worry when you read a book by a friend that you might think it sucks and you'll have to lie. I can assure you, I'm not lying.