I connected with Ellie is so many ways; from not wholly belonging to the Brown crowd, nor the White crowd to living life with a soundtrack in my head (albeit Ellie would argue her taste in music is much better, I'd have to argue that indeed it is not). I loved the representation in this book and I can only imagine how Ellie feels, being one of the few people of colour in a predominantly white neighbourhood. This was so incredibly young-adult (YA) and thus, the perfect palate cleanser after all the heavy dystopian books. Friendships are getting trickier and more complicated (check) and she doesn’t quite fit in to either side of her heritage (check).

A warm hearted read that really perfectly captures what it feels like to be a teenager: it's a real whirlwind of emotions and complexity. Now Mrs Aachara’s leading the class and it seems she’s spotted something in Ellie’s ‘performance’ that even she doesn’t know is present.I loved the fresh and original voice of this coming of age debut, approaching big themes with a light touch. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. However, it is through the challenges of teenage life that Ellie begins to find herself, making this an extremely relatable book for upper school students. My main critique was quite how much was packed in, including themes of dishonesty, low self esteem, grief, sexual assault, alcohol abuse, LGBTQ+ characters, post-child loss pregnancy, teacher crushes (!

Her friends are cool, but she’s not that girl, in fact most of the time she goes about her life invisible to the rest of the school. It reminded me of Never Have I Ever (which I also love) and it's different having a South Asian girl going thorough teen angst.

I never considered DNFing though, and I'm really looking forward to the sequel that's released next month! They would also only drop off a case of books and leave us to run it – it was so lovely to have you on hand to chat to the children and recommend them books, as well as the small (but appreciated!

Whilst reading I couldn't wait to come across another QR code so that I could listen to the music too. I haven't charted out my visits for the summer term, but I'm sure there are several in the south) and thanks so much for being so fantastic! At this point I do feel like I've pretty much aged out of YA, especially contemporary, but I do like to go back to it every now and again to catch up and see what I've been missing. I did like the stronger focus on friendships, family and finding yourself, though the romance was quite sweet as well, and the integration of music into the story was definitely pretty interesting. From Nobel Laureates Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter to theatre greats Tom Stoppard and Alan Bennett to rising stars Polly Stenham and Florian Zeller, Faber Drama presents the very best theatre has to offer.So the thought that Ellie is taking drama for GCSE rather than computer science, is likely to be devastating. I think reading this book definitely opened my eyes to some of the barriers that POC have, and cultural differences/barriers that are faced, which people may not even think about. Christine Pillainayagam brings humour and emotion to her debut, Ellie Pillai Is Brown, in a feel good coming-of-age gem. Maybe it's the new boy at school who makes her brain explode into rainbows every time she sees him (and also happens to be going out with her best friend), or maybe it's her new drama teacher, the one who seems to have noticed she exists. Ellie is very much a dramatic teenager (shocker) and every time I was about to judge her for it, I remembered what I wrote in my diary back in 2011 and figured I was not one to talk.