Girls Under Pressure by Jacqueline Wilson

Girls Under Pressure by Jacqueline Wilson is a great novel for adolescent girls who are just struggling through high school or who want someone to relate to. The story is about Ellie and her two best friends Magda and Nadine. Ellie is the girl that thinks she is too chubby and just wants to be like her super slim friend Nadine. This book tackles some very sensitive real life issues as Nadine gets a chance to model and Ellie becomes obsessed with the way she looks. This leads her to resort to bulimic habits and she starts to exercise more and eat less. In the end she realises she can be herself and her body image is not that important, however this novel is not for everyone as it could induce wrong ideas about changing your body image and the realities that come with the world of modelling.

The story follows the traditional narrative style where the climax is when Ellie has starved herself to the extent that she is passing out and everyone is getting worried about her. This novel contains some really big issues that adolescent girls face as they get older and feel as though they must be a certain way to be accepted. The moral of the story is quite clear however the concepts the book describes could be misunderstood for normal occurrences and could send some teenage girls down the wrong path.

This novel is aimed at older adolescent girls as this is the age range that could handle the problems portrayed in this story. There is a definite moral to this story and it is an important one. Girls should not worry so much about the way they look and simply be themselves.