IBBY SA Reviews Signed, Hopelessly in Love

IBBY is the International Board on Books for Young People and the South African branch reviewed my book in its latest newsletter! The review is copied below. Here is the link to the review.

Signed, Hopelessly in Love, Lauri Kubuitsile (Tafelberg, 2011)
I can quite understand why this novel was a finalist in the 2009 Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature: Lauri Kubuitsile has her own voice: the writing has an honesty and directness which appeals.

In a school environment two friends Nono and Amo share their lives – Nono an athlete, Amo the school journalist who gets the assignment to do a column under the pseudonym Aunt Lulu. She answers the letters of readers with personal problems.

Amo is in love with the head boy John Gababonwe, and when she receives an anonymous letter asking for advice by somebody who is hopelessly in love with a girl, she immediately assumes that it is from him, and that she needs to tell him that she likes him too!

The author presents the reader with a believable mixture of events and situations: school sport, studies, relationships, gossip, and the usual competitiveness and jealousy – Nono’s attempt to win a gold medal for the school is hampered by a student seeking revenge by attempting to injure her during a race; the Pig’s 1965 National Athletics trophy gets stolen, and then there is Amo making a complete fool of herself …

As she says: “They can cure terrible diseases, move genes around between plants and one day put a Motswana girl on the moon, and they still haven’t invented the invisibility button? Where is science when we need it?” A good read.