Tip

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Tip

Category:	Self-Help
Author:	Zoompad
Publisher:	Trafford
Price:	£19.50
ISBN:	1425167187
Pages:
Reviewed in issue:	11

Tip is a very special book. The author writes in the first person, and in the style of a girl who is at first very young. We are given the feeling we’re reading a diary – or have entered straight into the heroine’s thoughts and feelings. This is a book about sex, and the discovery of what is good and bad.

Helen’s confusion is partly the result of abuse and her own experiments. Her own family, friends – and the services in place to help her – misunderstand her needs (and in fact add to her problems). But what really makes this special is the down-to-earth way on which Helen tells her story. She does not overdramatise or exaggerate. She remarks at the end of the book that her ‘nerves are bad’, but explains some of her coping mechanisms by saying that she tries not to let anyone know about that.

Helen’s story is not a pretty one, but there is something clear and unsullied in her approach to all that life throws at her. She loves her music, and this is to some extent her salvation. In her own words, ‘You really don’t have to know the answers to everything. You just have to think about everything properly.’ Every parent, teacher and young person should read this book, It gives a great deal to think about.

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