After finishing The Man in the Iron Mask (the final section of The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later) I took a break from Alexandre Dumas for 40 days. I totally thought it was going to be longer, but I burned through my backlog of podcasts and needed something to listen to at work. I already had The Count of Monte Cristo on my MP3 player, so it was my default choice. Within a few chapters, I was hooked.

The best way I can describe this book is “The Taming of the Shrew meets Confessions of Georgia Nicholson.” That’s not an entirely fair description because this book actually came out before Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, but it has a similarly sassy diary-writing heroine.

This is one of the few books that has remained on my serious wishlist (meaning I looked for it every time I went into a bookstore) for several years. I finally found a copy last August. Fortunately, you’re smarter than I am, and will probably just order your copy online. It’s really not that rare.