One the scale of Cathy Cassidy books, Dizzy certainly isn't the worst one I've read. It's apparently her first book, and it reads well for a first attempt at a novel, honestly.
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DIZZY
Dizzy is our main character. As with most CC characters, she's dull, boring and twelve, has a stupid name and yes, a love interest. The book opens with her twelfth birthday, and we get an interesting look at her past - Dizzy's hippy, carefree mum left her and her dad when she was only four, and every birthday sends a present from a different place around the world. This year however Storm (that's not her real name) shows up and whisks her daughter away to festival life.
Dizzy is really dull and boring. You can't connect with her as a character, and though the stuff about her mum is interesting, it feels half baked, without necessary emotions. I don't feel for Dizzy, not really. She's a vague, badly written character I can't get invested in, plus she's pretty stupid, believing Storm's lie that her dad knows they're going, and that she's posting all her letters to him when she so obviously isn't. And it's not that Dizzy is just trying to believe her mum - she actually does believe her.
She also has those irritating "deep" flowery aestheticy moments that Cathy is so fond of giving her characters, and there's this one really weird scene where she's talking to Finn, her 13 year old love interest:
My fingers notice the rough, calloused skin on his heel and sole, the smooth skin above. I count his toenails, five little slivers of ice in the moonlight.
"Did anyone ever tell you that you have drop dead gorgeous feet?" I ask.
Finn laughs out loud. "No," he says. "Nobody ever did. Only you, Dizzy."
Dizzy, wtaf.
STORM
I get where Cathy was trying to go with this character, I really do. She's an immature, irresponsible woman who couldn't handle the responsibilities of motherhood and still can't twelve years later. But again, Storm isn't real to me. Cathy's characters never are. It's like we're given this vague outline of them, and told what our opinion of them should be, and that's it, that's their entire character.
Storm basically kidnaps her daughter and then abandons her again to go off with her new boyfriend to India. That should be sad to me or something, but like.....it just isn't. The characters aren't developed enough for me to care about them as real people.
FINN
Here's our love interest, Finn the festival hippie who plays guitar and never wears shoes because that's attractive and not at all disgusting and dangerous. He knew Dizzy when they were kids and played together, he doesn't really have a personality, though we do see a nice soft side to him in that he looks after a little kid, Mouse, the son of Storm's equally immature and irresponsible boyfriend.
I have no clue what colour this kid's eyes are supposed to be. Cathy calls them blue-grey, then turquoise, then just plain grey. Does she realise that turquoise and grey are completely different colours though?
His lips taste of salt and sand and happiness.
DIZZY YOU ARE TWELVE YEARS OLD AND THIS IS YOUR AND PROBABLY HIS FIRST KISS.
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THE REST OF THE BOOK
There isn't much to say about it. The plot is vaguely interesting. Some of the side characters are okay, Finn's mum is really nice but again a very dull character. That one kid with the stupid name, Mouse, gets badly burned in a bonfire and is taken into care. Dizzy goes home to live with her dad again yay.
I would give this book maybe 1/5. It's not bad bad, just overall kind of dull and weird.
