Jelly by Jo Cotterill

Jelly is the school class clown as we discover her insecurity at being the bigger girl at school. She suffers from some bullying comments made towards her many times about her weight building her insecurity as she lets out her anger against people by writing some rather emotional short poetry as a hobby.

She also has to battle with her mothers bad taste in boyfriends as they use her and treat her badly until by chance her mum finally meets a decent guy whom might just also make Jelly happy too.

As Jelly deals with puberty and entering the school talents show with her rather brilliant impersonation act, we see a brave girl emerge as she turns the cruel words said to her into a work of art and owns the stage for her performance.

The book cleverly shows how bullying can effect someone but also how it can in turn inspire them as well. It also shows how a plus size teen is a great choice of main character as Jelly is a normal teenager dealing with an array of issues like any teen of any size a first for teen fiction and I commend Jo for this!