Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging

Title: Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging
Author: Louise Rennison
ISBN: 0064472272

Other Books in Series: On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God; Knocked Out by my Nunga-Nungas; Dancing in my Nuddy-Pants; Away Laughing on a Fast Camel; Then He Ate my Boy Entrancers; Startled by His Furry Shorts; Love is a Many-Trousered Thing; Stop in the Name of Pants!; Are These my Basoomas I See Before Me?; Further Confessions of Georgia Nicolson.

Plot Summary: Georgia Nicolson, a young British teenager, is dealing with many common teenage issues at once: embarrassing parents, a precocious younger sister, an insane pet cat, school rivalries, and of course, romance. In the process, she and her friends make up new words, find new and hilarious ways to deal with the problems they face, emerging more or less intact.


Critical Evaluation: The American publishers of this book deserve credit for not "Americanizing" any of the dialogue or vocabulary in this book. Rather, they and Rennison have struck on an ingenious solution: the main character, in her friendly, conversational tone, bids hello to her American readers before introducing them to a glossary of British terms which may be unfamiliar to them, explaining them all in her own unique style. The book itself seems less like a novel and more like a peek at a friend's diary, or even an extended conversation with that friend. Although Georgia is frequently flippant, and sometimes ignorant of current events unrelated to boys, clothes and popular culture, we always sympathize with her, not in the least because she is not afraid to laugh at herself. Nothing much "happens" in this book, in the sense that Georgia does not undergo any majorly traumatic events, yet by the end we feel that she has grown and changed from the small, everyday experiences she has with those around her.
Reader's Annotation: Georgia Nicolson, a 14-year-old English girl, has her hands full dealing with her embarrassing parents, precocious little sister, friends, potential boyfriends, and insane pet cat. She emerges from dealing with all of these tribulations with her sense of humor intact, but not always her sanity.

About the Author: Louise Rennison grew up in Leeds, England, and lived there until age 15, when her parents decided to emigrate to New Zealand. Louise moved back to England in her twenties and lived in the Notting Hill Gate section of London, where she worked at a variety of jobs before earning a Performing Arts degree from the University of Brighton and pursuing a career as a comedy writer and solo comedy performer. She currently lives in Brighton, which she describes as "the San Francisco of England," and has written a number of young adult and adult fiction novels, including the Georgia Nicolson series.

Genre: Fiction

Curriculum Ties: None

Booktalking Ideas:

Hook: Georgia's relationship with her family
Approach: Character-based
Ideas for Booktalk: How do Georgia's parents relate to her? To each other? To Libby? Libby is three years old, but is still not toilet-trained. What does this say about the family dynamics? Libby also regularly steals into her sister's bed, and although she can be annoying, clearly loves her. Libby's full name is "Liberty." How did the parents come up with this name, and what does it say about them and their attitude towards parenting? Is Georgia's family any more "out there" than other families? Despite their eccentricities, they seem to function pretty well as a unit. How accurate is Georgia's perception of her family as being "mad," and how much of it is a function of where she is in her personal development?

Hook: Georgia gets ahold of her mother's tweezers. One thing leads to another, and she ends up shaving her eyebrows off entirely. (p. 19-22)
Approach: Scene-based.
Ideas for Booktalk: Find out from the girls at what age they got into their mothers' beauty/grooming products, and exactly how disastrous the results were. Did they get in trouble? Try to cover it up? Did they ask a friend to help, and if so did that make any difference? Why does Georgia do this, and how does one thing leading to another leave her browless? Georgia is experimenting with a lot of things at her age, and personal grooming and beauty are big issues for girls going through puberty. Can branch out into a larger discussion of how this affects girls in general.

Reading Level/Interest Age: Junior High/High School

Challenge Issues: Offensive language, sexual content. Many adults, including my own mother, felt the sexual content in this book was inappropriate, especially as the person experiencing it is 14 years old. Much of the language, although not necessarily offensive in American English, has decidedly un-family-friendly meanings, and the book is, in essence, about a girl experiencing puberty and its concurrent awakening of sexual feelings. Although Georgia does not have sex in this book, she and her friends do not dismiss it as a possibility, although they are barely at the beginning levels of sexual "progress." However, I feel it is worth pointing out several things in regard to these issues. Firstly, all of the book titles in this series sound more risque than they actually are; Angus is Georgia's cat, she hates thongs, and the titular "full-frontal snogging" refers to kissing, which she witnesses someone else doing. Secondly, the actual behaviors in which Georgia and her friends engage is relatively innocuous, given some of the experiences teens have in other Young Adult books. Finally, the language Georgia and her friends use, although not entirely tame, is more or less indicative of the baseline level of profanity many teens use on both sides of the Atlantic. In short, this book seems a lot worse to the casual eye than it actually ends up being.

Why I Chose This Book: Quite frankly, I found this book and its sequels hilarious. Although not much actually "happens" in it, Georgia manages to get through all the small yet annoying experiences that befall her and make them interesting as well as funny. Rennison does not pass judgment on her protagonist for being ignorant of current events, having a shaky grasp of the French language, or even for starting to explore her own sexuality. Rather, she takes the mundane and makes it engrossing through her use of and experimentation of language, sense of humor, and empathy with a character undergoing an awkward and difficult time of life.