Fly Back Agnes

Agnes’s mother has remarried and Agnes now has a step-brother as well as a step-father, neither of whom she likes much. To add to her problems, her extrovert mother constantly embarrasses Agnes by drawing attention to her changing body shape as she approaches adolescence, so Agnes determines to spend the summer with her father in a town where no-one knows her. This is a chance to reinvent herself.

As Agnes creates an alternate backstory for herself amongst her new acquaintances, her life becomes complicated as she has to reconcile this new persona while living with her father who is unaware of the fiction that she has woven about her life. There is a happy resolution to her situation but also some lessons learned.

I enjoyed this book and the way it covered many different themes, a blended family, adolescence, self-confidence and relationships, but I found it hard to believe that Agnes was only 12 years old. It would have been more convincing for me if Agnes had been a couple of years older, that way the situations she found herself in would have been more believable. Some of the themes and the language would be a bit too sophisticated for many 12 year olds.