Book review: When adult life isn’t what you imagined it would be as a teenager

'Think Again' is an adult sequel to Jacqueline Wilson's 'Girls' series, and explores the theme of parenting as your children grow up

Jacqueline Wilson: This is her first novel for adults.

• Think Again 
• Jacqueline Wilson
•  Bantam, €18.99 
• Review: Tina Neylon 

Jacqueline Wilson has been a much-loved children’s author for decades. She’s written over 100 books and has created characters including Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather. She is a former UK Children’s Laureate and this is her first novel for adults.

It features characters Ellie, Magda, and Nadine, which young readers first met in Wilson’s Girls series of four books. They couldn’t have been more different then, and still are, yet their friendship has survived for decades.

Although Think Again is being marketed as the adult sequel to the Girls series, you don’t need to have read those books to enjoy this novel. The story is told from Ellie’s perspective so, though there are lots of appearances by Magda and Nadine, they are not treated equally. The attention is focused on Ellie throughout as she is the narrator.

As she approaches her 40th birthday she starts to reassess her life, driven by a change in her circumstances. She is the single mother of daughter Lottie whom she adores, has a successful and satisfying career, lifelong close friends, her own flat, and a cat called Stella. 

She should feel happier and starts to interrogate why she feels as she does and concludes that she’s been letting life just carry her along. She realises that her adult life is not how she’d imagined it would be when she was a teenager. What’s missing most of all is someone special in her life.

Also, when she loses her guaranteed income she’s forced to think about what she should do next to earn a living, while still using her artistic talent. 

It’s one of the challenges she’s facing. Others are confronting the changes everyone experiences as they age. 

Lottie is away at university and, although they remain very close, Ellie knows her daughter doesn’t need her in the way she did when younger. 

Wilson handles the complexities in their relationship as Lottie becomes an adult very well. She’s also very good at exploring how Ellie comes to accept her father’s flaws understanding that while he often can annoy her, she still loves him.

She embarks on a relationship with her former teacher, on whom she had a crush when she was a teenager. Ellie hasn’t had a long-term relationship before, and Wilson writes convincingly about her feelings and insecurities. He’s older than her, and she only gradually starts to realise that she must assert herself with him. She also makes a new friend Alice and is puzzled by how immediate the connection between them feels.

It’s an enjoyable read. Ellie is a likeable and believable character. It is easy, especially for a female, to identify with her and the challenges she faces as she reaches middle age.

Wilson has always been admired for how she approaches contemporary topics in her work, and this is no exception. Think Again couldn’t be a better title for a novel which explores themes including parenting as your children grow up; your changing relationship with aging parents; how friendships change. 

Most of all it is about self-belief and is written with warmth and humour.