Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Rennison (the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson books) is back with a new series, this time featuring 14½-year-old Tallulah Casey, a self-deprecating and boy-crazy aspiring actress, as well as-in typical Rennison fashion-a spunky comedian. (Oh, and she's Georgia's cousin, too.) Tallulah heads off to Dother Hall in Yorkshire, a school for the performing arts, to pursue a life on the stage, and it won't take readers long to note that her personality is perfect for the profession. With entertaining scenarios in spades (Tallulah's home-stay family lodges her in what she regularly refers to as "the squirrel room," for instance), a cast of winning new girlfriends, and cute boys everywhere they turn, Tallulah and company work through the trials of adolescence and the mysteries of first romance. British slang is abundant (lots of "snogging," of course, but also less familiar terms like "smalls"). If the nonstop jokes and silliness can become a bit much at times, Tallulah is an effervescent protagonist who will keep fans of YA Brit lit laughing until the very end. Ages 12-up. (July)

ALA Booklist (Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)

Tallulah Casey is a British cousin of Georgia Nicolson. No, really, not just metaphorically. And anyone who has read the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series, including Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging (2000), will recognize that Tallulah and Georgia sound an awful lot alike. Tallulah's tale also has the same bright, breezy, and very funny take on life but with a younger heroine who finds herself in a most appealing setting: Dother Hall, a "magnificent center of the performing and visual arts, nestled among the beautiful Yorkshire Dales." Tallulah is not totally devoted to her art (it was a choice between drama and an Outward Bound program). But she has soon thrown herself into acting, yet with enough time and energy left for the usual concerns of a young teen: first snog, small corkers ("girls' jiggly bits" that Georgia calls "nunga nungas"), and, perhaps unique to Tallulah, overly developed knees. As usual, a glossary provides its own hilarity: a mardy bum is "someone who is so bad-tempered . . . even their bum is annoyed." Good fun!

Kirkus Reviews

Fans of Georgia Nicolson will be thrilled to meet her cousin Tallulah in Printz Honor–winner Rennison's new madcap melodrama. Fourteen-year-old Tallulah Casey is headed to summer theatre school in Yorkshire armed with nothing more than a good-luck letter from Cousin Georgia and sheer determination to become a star. Because other than a penchant for breaking into Riverdance whenever she gets nervous, Tallulah has no talent to speak of. Desperate to impress her teachers in order to win a permanent spot at Dother Hall, Tallulah choreographs a bicycle ballet called "Sugar Plum Bikey," which unfortunately ends up having the opposite effect and the added bonus of spraining her ankle. Meanwhile, she's also nursing crushes on three local boys: older Alex, bad boy Cain and sweetheart Charlie. It is almost summer's end before Tallulah gets kissed and discovers that her talent might be making people laugh. But is being funny enough for Tallulah to be asked back after her fake-moustache–twirling turn as Heathcliff in the final summer production? Though some of Tallulah's Briticisms may be confusing to American readers, her utterly hilarious glossary in the back will help. "The Bronte Sisters: Em, Chazza, and Anne...they wrote Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and loads of other stuff about terrible weather conditions and moaning. But in a good way." Rennison's writing remains reliably, undeniably entertaining; Georgia would be pleased. (Fiction. 12 & up)

Horn Book (Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2012)

Fourteen-year-old Tallulah Casey (Georgia Nicolson's younger cousin) attends a performing arts summer school in the Yorkshire Dales. She quickly makes friends--all as boy-obsessed as she--while garnering self-confidence and discovering her hidden talents. Lullah's madcap adventures, her literary musings, and her naive inner monologues are all highly entertaining. An amusing glossary of Briticisms and Tallulah's own made-up phrases is appended.

School Library Journal (Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)

Gr 7 Up-Rennison introduces Georgia Nicholson's cousin, Tallulah Casey, a girl just as funny and introspective as Georgia herself, if not more so. Tallulah is on her way to a performing-arts school on the Yorkshire Moorsthis fact alone has her beside herself thinking about Cathy and Heathcliff. This will be her first time away from homeshe'll be on her own with no parents, no little brother—and plans to discover her inner artistic talents and keep her knobby knees tightly under wraps. Tallulah soon meets a fun group of girls as well as Cain, the local cad; Alex, the local swoon-worthy boy; an owl; and Charlie, a boy with potential—and a secret. Readers will be laughing at the teen's adventures and her journey toward artistic greatness during her summer at Dother Hall. Will she end up with Charlie? Does she really hate Cain—or does she secretly "feel funny" around him? Will Alex ever see her as anything but a 14-year-old? Tallulah is a vivacious and hilarious character who will speak to every girl—she's not the most popular or the most beautiful, but she has her own wonderful talents that others start to recognize. This is a wonderful start to a new series that will attract Georgia's many fans as well as bring in new readers, who will fall in love with Tallulah and all of her quirks. A definite must purchase for all libraries.— Traci Glass, Eugene Public Library, OR