Zelah Green: One More Little Problem Review

Author: Vanessa Curtis
Release date: December 2, 2011
Publisher: EgmontUK
Most appropriate for ages: 12+
Other titles in series: Zelah Green: Queen of Clean
How I got it: From publicist for review

My name is Zelah Green – and I’m still here.

Summer’s supposed to be good, right? But I’m stuck at home with a lousy laptop, stacks of homework to start and dad being more useless than ever. And then Caro turns up out of the blue, all heavy metal and piercings and attitude and my boring summer’s turned upside down. It’s like she knows just what to say to wind me up, sending my OCD right out of control...
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If you'll remember, I found the first installment in the series to be charming, quirky, and unique. While I found One More Little Problem to be a little less great, I still enjoyed it a lot.

This may sound weird, but I LOVE how small these books are. Though I did feel if it had been just a tad longer we would've gotten to know Caro better (something I was really hoping for), overall the book's size didn't detract much from the story, and I love being able to read one of these in such a short amount of time.

Sometimes I felt like we didn't get as much spunk and quirk from Zelah that we did in the first book, but I was also intrigued by getting to watch Zelah go through her normal life with OCD instead of being a home trying to "fix" her problem. It was fascinating to watch her attempt to navigate through issues with her friends and family as well as tackle dating. (Though, honestly, I found the way she dated to be highly unrealistic.)

As a whole, I enjoyed Zelah Green: One More Little Problem, even if I thought a few kinks could've been worked out.

Plot: Interesting and different enough from the first book.

Characters: Zelah's wit seemed to be lacking, and I never felt like we got to know Caro as well as we could've.

Writing: Light and easy to read

Ending: Pretty awesome.

Kid friendly: There's some swearing, self-harming, smoking, and drinking.

Overall:

I'd flail my hand a little at anyone that tried to talk to me.

This series is fun but also interesting--and the result is pretty darn cool and thoroughly engrossing.