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Kass Kennedy is in trouble. Her manically ‘up-and-down’ dad has finally lost it. He’s entered her for The X-Factor. This would be slightly less of a crisis if: 1. she could sing; 2. any tiny bit of her wanted to be a star, and; 3. And, if she hadn’t just lost her two best friends over a boy in brown boots.

How is she going to get out of it with her sanity, friendships and family still intact?

Reviews:

'Addictive. Original. True. … It's a rare feeling when you pick up a book and know you've got something different in your hands, something you won't want to put down - I got that with this book.' AUTHOR, JOANNA NADIN

'Difficult issues treated with intelligence and gentle humour, and complex, lovely, real characters.' AUTHOR, JACLYN MORIARTY

Publishing in November 2009.

Hilariously explores the hopes, dreams and non-existent singing talent of 15-year old Kass, but also depicts a family coping with parental depression – and is funnier, more moving and original for it.

          When I get to my room I’m more out of breath than the stairs would have made me; it’s all sinking in. The times she’s worked late – worked late, or been with him? She’s been coming home, cooking for us, lovingly prepared pasta and a big fat lie for dessert; we’ve swallowed it with a ‘Thanks, Mum!’ and out she’s gone with a spring in her step from the new black shoes she must have bought to impress him. How could she, with that Cane Toad of a man?

            I feel so stupid; I feel the way you do when someone at school pulls your chair as you’re about to sit down. From my desk I pick up a photo in a frame that says Best Friends: me, Izzy and Char. It’s mostly me and Izzy because Char’s camera-shy, but she looks so sweet and she’s looking at me like she thinks I’m something special – not the girl who stole the boy she loves, and not the girl whose mother stole her dad. We’re all smiling – stupid, smiling girls who have no idea that my mother is about to ruin our lives.

            I backtrack; I feel like I’m watching a home movie of my life when I picture Char getting on the bus, that first morning she didn’t seem herself. That was almost three weeks ago – she’s been carrying this around all that time. Why didn’t she tell me? How did she keep something like this in? I can’t ask her; I can’t ask any of the million questions because I’ve ruined things between us. She was right – I’m just like my mother.

          I put the photo face down on the desk and flick off the light, and flick it back on when the darkness takes me back to the alley. Toe to heel I ease the boots off, leaning against the wall, and put them neatly together in a corner by the dusty cello. I sit on my bed, close my eyes and rest my head backwards. I hold my breath for Dad’s return, as if from up here I’d be able to hear anything but the wind skating over the skylight or the pigeons’ babble. Instead I imagine what Dad might be saying to Mum on the phone, and her replies.

            – I’ve been worried sick, Grace. What the hell is going on?

            – Calm down—

            – Don’t tell me to calm down, just tell me what’s happened.

            – It’s ... nothing, it was just that she didn’t want to go through with it. The song.

            - She’s never done that to me before. Not since ... I don’t believe it. She wouldn’t run out on me like that.

          –  Well, she did.

          – Yes but why, Grace, WHY?

          – I don’t know.

            I turn over and press my face into my hands and cry noiselessly. I have betrayed my best friend, and myself, and I can never erase what’s happened. Tonight I have fallen apart and I have no one, no one to turn to.