He tries to pressure Ellie into having sex before she’s ready, he tries to emotionally blackmail her into doing what he wants, he shames her, he steals her idea, speaks down to her, and kisses one of her best friends. It’s a weird combination, and as a result I cringed inwardly several times when the girls would talk about sex/pressures from boys to take things ‘further’ etc.

Russell gets more toxic by the page in this book - his infamous trait of constantly pressuring Ellie into sex rears its ugly head and is never treated as disgusting and wrong as it actually is. When she starts talking to a mysterious boy online, Ellie tries to warn Nadine of the dangers of telling him too much. Needless to say, reading these books when you're older opens up a new perspective of the world as it highlights its flaws subtly. A disappointing ending and not the love yourself first/girl power message Jacqueline Wilson usually peddles. It was mentioned several times that Russell wanted to go further than Ellie, but this wasn't explored in much detail.The Illustrated Mum won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award, the 1999 Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards and was also shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread Children’s Book Award. Magda's lost her pet and is desperately upset (though the others didn't even know she still had a hamster! I mean, it is meant to be in a collection but if you read it on its own it’s just fine, as the story makes total sense as well, but if you want to you can read the first two books first, although I don’t feel it is necessary.

Of course, it could just be something that annoys me as an adult but I do wish that the books were encouraging people to look beyond romance. Honestly I’ve red and re-read this book for 10 years and I stand by the conclusion that those are some shitty friends. Looking bad, it's a perfectly good story (especially across the 4 books) BUT I still remain baffled about what age range these books should be for?After being one of the best book series ever in my opinion, this was where the Girls series came crashing down.