Just what is so “marvy” about Louise Rennison’s phenomenally successful series? At first glance they seem like just another of the teen-girl-moans-about-her-lovelife genre, albeit with amusingly suggestive titles. You couldn’t be more wrong: they are actually the best kind of stand-up comedy, and have somehow wound up in book form. Georgia guides us through a series of vignettes about her bizarre family and friends with overarching themes of surviving adolescence, boy troubles and female friendships.

Refreshingly, Rennison manages to do this without turning Georgia into a Princess Diaries-style “outsider”. Here, cliqueyness isn’t vilified as it is in most teen fiction e.g. the best-selling American series Gossip Girl, which is why teenagers identify with Rennison’s “Ace Gang” so well. The truth is that most cliques are just big groups of friends. Georgia’s mates (and parents and oddball teachers) are all instantly recognisable in your own life, but they are developed enough not just to be archetypes.

The eponymous heroine might write about the annoying randomness of her own life, but the wit is so sharp that it isn’t downbeat at all. The series doesn’t preach at you, and it isn’t issue-based like so many other books in the genre that are trying to be more edgy. None of Georgia’s friends have eating disorders, drug problems or exam stress. Instead, all the conflict is centred around the local boys, and even then it doesn’t get too heavy – despite being a teen mother herself, none of Rennison’s characters are explicitly sexually active. A typical disaster would be when Georgia’s false eyelashes – or “boy entrancers” – get glued together.

Because of the absence of soap-opera-style melodramatics, Confessions. . . goes some way to making your own life feel more normal. Georgia’s world is so tangible that you feel more as if you are in conversation with her than reading, which is a big pull for some more reluctant readers.

Still not convinced? The series has also made a hefty contribution to the teen lexicon: I’ve lost count of the number of times I have heard friends unselfconsciously use words such as “nervy b” or “blodge” (biology). Like many innovative books from Nancy Mitford to P. G. Wodehouse, Confessions . .. may be “proper” literature, but it’s still worth reading, just for the fun of it.

Leonora Craig Cohen is 15 years old, and a pupil at North London Collegiate

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