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Advice from a 12-Year-Old Nobody

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Book Synopsis

Vinny needs support from his agony-aunt mum, but she’s too busy helping other people to notice in this empathetic tale about family and mental health by bestseller Helen Rutter.

Vinny’s got problems – lots of them. His family’s falling apart, and his best mates have dumped him for some really annoying girls.

He should be able to turn to his mum for help – she’s an online life coach who answers other people’s problems for a living. But she’s too busy to see that Vinny is really struggling.

Unable to solve his own issues, Vinny starts replying to unanswered posts on an old blog of his mum’s. At first the solutions seem easy, and he can be as hilariously honest as any 12-year-old boy would be, but what will happen when Vinny realises he’s out of his depth?

Particularly suitable for readers aged 9+ with a reading age of 8.

Our Review Panel says...

12-year-old Vinnie is frustrated by the picture perfect life that his mum – a viral online life coach – is portraying to her readers in order to fit in with her “brand” when the reality couldn’t be further from the truth – their family seems to be falling apart. But more than that, Vinnie is struggling, and his mum is the one person who he used to be able to talk to about things, but she has become too busy answering the world’s problems to have time to deal with his problems, so he keeps them to himself.

One day, Vinnie stumbles across an old blog that his mum used to write before she became famous, and he notices that there are lots of unanswered questions from people asking for her advice – he decides that these people deserve responses and sets about replying himself. Much to his suprise, the public seem to like his responses and more and more messages come flooding in. Reading about other people’s problems makes Vinnie feel like he is not alone and he begins to realise that sharing your problems is better than holding them all on your own.

Typical of Helen Rutter, this book is an incredibly easy read – perfect for struggling or reluctant readers – which is full of laugh out loud humour but with a strong message at its heart.