Sugar Sugar

title: Sugar Sugar
Author: Carole Wilkinson
First Published: Black Dog Books in 2010

Jackie sets out for France in 1972 to try and become a famous fashion designer. she has been living a drab life in London, working for a boring fashion company as a sales girl, with a bunch on crabby part-time models who only eat salads and hard boiled eggs. she decides suddenly take a few days off and travel to Paris to show her designs to a famous designer in hope of getting a job.

somehow she ends up chasing two American girls in a vintage British cab to get back her folio. from here she continues chasing people right to Afghanistan, having the worst of luck on the way. she makes quite a few new friends, with the help of some drugs, lack of food, Dolf's guitar and Val's dice.

i quite liked this book it was very different to what i was expecting though, it wasn't your usual girl travels to Paris story.
here are some things that i liked:

-it's slow winding pace. it's very peaceful and appropriate and doesn't make the book boring

-the descriptions of the different places. i loved hearing about Yugoslavia and turkey, it showed how beauty can be all kinds of different things. i especially loved Jackie's descriptions of home, red dirt, the beach, soft green grass and eating peaches in summer.

-the characters were very realistic, they had so many faults and not token faults. one character was 'the moody one' and another 'the one who has a big mouth'. all characters made mistakes and changed and grew. i know this was true because i found myself being mad at Jackie who i quite liked, and liking Dolf something even though i thought he was annoying.

-i like the paisley pattern at the beginning of every chapter.

here are some things i didn't like:

-i felt that i didn't really know Jackie for the first half of the book. i even managed to forget her name, which isn't a good sign. i felt she was a little undeveloped at the beginning.

-there were lots of characters coming and going, and of course they all had names native to there countries. i found myself a little confused at time.

-it somehow felt a little heavy. this must be just be because i don't really know what i mean.

overall i liked this book and would recommend it to anyone who likes more slowly paced books. it's quite thought provoking at parts and you feel like you get to visit all the countries, while at some points it makes you wish you were traveling across Europe and Asia in a London taxi. my favourite thing about this book is how you could see the characters grow and develop.