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The Baking Life of Amelie Day ISBN: 9781782021667
Curtis, Vanessa
Published by Curious Fox, 2014
Amelie is a whizz at baking, so much so that at thirteen she has made it to the quarter-finals of Britain's Best Teen Baker of the Year. This is great news, but there is only one problem: Amelie has Cystic Fibrosis, and the final is in London and would mean a three day stay. Her mum is less than pleased at the idea of London's pollution which would be bad for Amelie's CF, but Amelie is a gutsy sort and is quite determined that she will go. Baking is her life; it has helped her keep her CF at bay, and 'flour power' is her motto. Best friend Gemma and boyfriend Harry are encouraging, but Amelie's CF is going through a particularly bad patch, and it looks like her mum and dad (they are divorced but friendly) won't let her go. The descriptions of Amelie's symptoms, her medication, and just what CF means in her life are graphic and real. We see her on a visit to her CF centre and what this involves, and we know how she feels inside when she is at her worst. She must have a yearly review of her condition, and if her lung function gets much worse, we know she faces a double lung transplant. Because she has always lived with the condition, Amelie is fairly complacent about all the treatment she must have, but she does know that her life is likely to be short. The novel is very readable, and we learn a great deal about CF and how it affects her family and friends as well as herself. Towards the end of the book I had to suspend disbelief, but that was okay because I was enjoying it so much! There are recipes too, which look delicious and have good instructions. As Amelie develops her own blog on baking, we get social media thrown in too, and her gentle, loving relationship with Harry is super. We finish the book knowing that Amelie's CF is very serious and that she is on the transplant list, but we also feel that whatever life holds for her, she will make the most of it.
Age: 10+