Knowing Me, Knowing You [Helen Bailey]

Chantelle 'Channy' Allen is just about enduring her slightly bored teenage existence - trying not to die of embarrassment every time her parents' Abba tribute band perform a cringing medley of hits in front of all her friends...

But then Channy finds out something that turns her world upside down; something that makes perfect sense, but at the same time seems utterly ridiculous. Something that Channy is intent on investigating - despite the distraction of gorgeous French exchange student Antoine.

Channy's about to learn a valuable life lesson: sometimes curiosity is a dangerous thing...- taken from Amazon.co.uk


This book isn't what I thought it would be. Not in a bad way, I just wasn't expecting it. When I read the blurb, I thought it would be about a girl who's school has a French exchange program and that she would go and stay in France, then the exchange student in England. But I found the exchange student was a boy [ooops!] and that Channy meets him whilst bunking school.

I liked Channy as a character, but she was quite rude. She had an emotional journey, but it was hard to empathize with her as she covered it up and acted like she was okay. She's a strong person who doesn't like to show her feelings and she doesn't appreciate the people around her. However, she coped extremely well with the fact her parents were in an Abba tribute band and performing in front of her friends!

The characters were brilliant. I thought the twins were a bit dramatized, but still believable and an asset to the story. It's really interesting to see what older people think of younger people and how they behave and Helen's got it almost perfectly. I don't know anybody that obsessed with having the most friends on Facebook, but I'm pretty sure some people are like that!

The middle to end part of the book was my favourite. This is when the surprise of the story takes place, something which I really didn't expect. It's natural that Channy wants to get in touch with her father [was that a spoiler...?], but I didn't see it coming [though maybe I should have!]. If you've read the book, you'll know that the situation Channy gets herself into is madness. The character of her 'father' is so weird. The fact that he's no the obvious kind of... okay, this is really hard to explain without putting a spoiler in, but the fact that his personality and actions aren't those which you would expect.

Knowing Me, Knowing You has a really sweet ending and could easily have a sequel. I also love the name. Whilst being an Abba song, it shows the characters don't always know the people they think they know, so it was an interesting play on words.

I read Running In Heels, which is also by Bailey, and I did prefer it to Knowing Me, Knowing You- but I would still re-read both books.

Overall it was a fun read with an unexpected twist and I really enjoyed it.