Cookie -- Jacqueline Wilson

Beauty Cookson lives in one of her father's many Happy Homes™:

We used to live in a deluxe Happy Home, but now we'd moved to an even bigger, fancier home especially built for us.  We had six bedrooms, three bathrooms, a sauna and a hot tub outside.  I even had my own en suite bathroom, dusty rose to match my pink bedroom, with silver dolphin taps.

Unfortunately, the life she leads inside the Happy Home doesn't even remotely live up to its name.  She and her mother live in fear of Beauty's Dad -- it only takes seconds for him to transform from a cheerful jolly generous father into a red-faced berating evil-tongued monster, and it seems, lately, that he's been spending much more time as Mean Dad.

Beauty's life outside of the Happy Home isn't particularly happy, either -- and a good deal of that difficulty is caused by her name:

I was christened Beauty.  It's a ridiculous name.  It would be a silly show-off shallow name even if I just magically happened to be beautiful.  But I am so not beautiful.  I don't take after Mom, I take after Dad.  I am small and squat, with a big tummy.  My blue eyes turned green as gooseberries when I was still a baby, and you can't really see them anyway because I have to wear glasses.  My hair's mousy brown, long and lank.  Mom tries to tie it up with clips and ribbons but they always fall out.  You can see why Emily and Arabella and Skye tease me so.  I am a laughingstock because of my name.

"Difficulty" is an understatement -- she is tormented by some of her classmates.  And, during his rages, her father is inclined to mock her weight and looks and bemoan his decision to name her Beauty.  As I said on Facebook, for me, reading the first half of Cookie was the emotional equivalent of being repeatedly punched in the face.  (He's easily as terrible as the father in North of Beautiful, but Beauty is much younger and has less of a support network than Terra did.)

Fittingly, Beauty's favorite book is A Little Princess.  Like Sara Crewe, Beauty is a gentle, sensitive soul (though she's got more fire than Sara) who wants nothing more than a pet rabbit, a best friend, and for her father to treat her and her mother with love and respect.  There were moments when I really thought about putting it down, but I stuck with it because I was mega-engaged and because I had trust in Jacqueline Wilson -- I mean, I couldn't imagine that she'd let Beauty fall in love with A Little Princess and then NOT give her a happy ending.

While I felt that some of the characters were a bit one-note, and while I felt that the happy ending was almost too easy (but I mostly let that go because of the loose parallel to A Little Princess), overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit.  I felt that the relationship between Beauty and her mother was especially well drawn:  their attempts to shield each other from Dad's rages, their growing confidence, their dependence on each other and their frustration with each other all felt right and true.  And, as always, Nick Sharratt's illustrations were spot on.  Ultimately, it's not remotely the best book I've read by Jacqueline Wilson, but it kept me entertained for a couple of hours, and I'm sure that her young fans* will enjoy it.

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*Though there is a SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER rather gruesome scene involving a dead animal that might bother some readers END SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER.  But if they're already fans, then they'll be aware that cartoon-y cover art doesn't equate to a super-gentle and light storyline.

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Book source:  My local library.

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