Dear Dylan... by Siobhan Curham

About the Book

The summer holiday should be fun, but not for 14-year old Georgie Harris. She has been put in charge of her younger younger half-sister, Michaela, whilst her fragile mum works at the local bookie's and her mean step-dad sleeps after working all night as a cab driver. She starts emailing the young star of a popular soap, which has dramatic consequences. 

What I Think

I've had my eye on this book for some time for two reasons. The first thing that caught my attention was the front cover (the one above, not the original one - I didn't discover that until I started researching the book for this post). I love its simplicity and quirkiness. 

Secondly I had read that it was all written in the form of emails between the main characters. I'm very interested in different writing styles and was intrigued as to how this would work. In my opinion it worked well! Through the writing of the emails you feel closely connected to the characters (as this is a form of first person perspective) and their individual personalities really come through. 

Another great thing about this book is language. Young Georgie likes making up words, often by combining two words together, which is an indication not only of her age, but of her creative personality. Also modern communication, and emailing especially, has its own language. Curham has made the most of this by using variations on it, which are extremely funny. My favourite was lolsil (laugh out loud silent in library). 

About the Author

Siobhan Curham is an award-winning author, writing workshop leader and life coach.