Slumber Party Wars by Melanie Marks: book review

Slumber Party Wars by Melanie Marks (2011), set in America, is the comedic story of a 12-year-old girl trying to fit into her new school. This is a novel for 9-12 year olds.

Nicole is forced to attend her first day in a new school with red itchy eyes. She swallows a contact lens, doesn’t have her glasses with her, and continues to have many embarrassing blunders hour after hour. Absolutely nothing goes right for her – she is trying too hard to be ‘the new really cool kid.’

On the second day at the new school, she is hospitalized, and on the third day ... Each day is a comedy of errors.

Eventually, she steadies and is headed in the right direction, even making friends. But not for long. A mean trick starts ‘the wars’ – the sleepover conflicts – the slumber party wars!

The characters are not well-developed and I found Nicole, the main character, to be too scatty and annoying, with poor dialogue, and too much internal ruminations. I liked Nicole’s mother, although she wasn’t mentioned much. The author must have been in a hurry to write this book, and even the ending is too rushed and unsatisfying. Overall, it is funny sometimes, has a message to tell, and young readers are likely to find the everyday comedic events relevant for them.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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