Review: Zelah Green, Queen of Clean by Vanessa Curtis (Zelah Green #1)

This is the first review by new Once Upon a Series blogger, Amy. So please give her a nice warm welcome. You can also check out Amy's blog which is dedicated to UK YA here.

Publisher - Egmont Books Ltd
Publication Date - 5th July 2010
Paperback - 256 pages
Genre - YA Contemporary

Source - Library

Rating - 4 out of 5: I really liked it

Reviewed by - Amy

Book Info - My name is Zelah Green and I'm a Cleanaholic.

I spend most of my life on Germ-Alert (Germ-Alert is for when people forget to wash their hands and then try to touch me.) It's a miracle I ever get to school. But then my stepmother packed me off to live with a bunch of weirdos at Forest Hill where everyone has their 'little problems' too...

There's Alice, who lives on a yoghurt a day; Caro, who's all attitude and heavy metal music... Lib- I don't even want to think about her problem... And then there's Sol... Sol, with his deep brown eyes and olive skin. Sol, who won't speak, but has the cutest smile. Sol, who... Uh oh, FLIRT ALERT!...

Maybe, just maybe, something good could happen here...

My Thoughts - Zelah Green was a really interesting look at life for a variety of “issues”. I’m only saying issues not characters cos although the characters were different this isn’t as rare as them all pretty much having issues.

Like OCD. Welcome Zelah and her rituals which are just beyond belief. Some things I really believed; I squirmed, cringed, giggled ‘aww’ed, ‘Gah’ed and was like,

I empathised slightly too much. In OCD the important letter is the ‘O’. Obsessive. Sometimes, I kid you not, I feel like my life is unbalanced (cos of my slight ‘O-’cd-, well probably not just that but for me it’s not the biggest thing, anyway... this isn’t about me). OCD, and unbalance which is all too likely to occur, for Zelah means disaster! Yes, it’s the BIG thing in her life.

But can skipping dozens of jumps change your life? You’ll see if ritual cutting down can change her life or if it’s Forest Hill. In the end the stepmother didn’t properly seem real. Disappointing as she was a main character (even more than Sol, aka. the love interest). Yup, guys- this is a hardly a romance. Chances are you’ll love the characters even though and curse the stupid person who took Book 2 out of the library I want to have the next one now. There wasn’t a major cliff-hanger (if there was you’d have seen depressed tweets). However once again I have a book leaving me wanting more information. Like NOW.

Tell me more about Lib, Curtis. Pleeease.

Summary - The thing that made this book comical and serious effectively was the fact you could believe both and it was pretty much: that’s LIFE. I really enjoyed it & I may’ve mentioned that it wasn’t a romance- not all books are, not all I enjoy & not all on this blog. I may have been expecting it to be but, it was lovely as it was with awesome characters & an equally epic place. I love Forest Hill & I just wish I knew it existed (not for me, but just for general awesomeness). It seems so real so maybe there are places like that. I hope they are as wonderful as this book was- it really didn’t disappoint.

Other books in the series:
1. Zelah Green, Queen of Clean
2. One More Little Problem