Julia Gillian (and the Dream of the Dog) by Alison McGhee
Scholastic Press
ISBN:978-0-545033510
Publication Date: July 2010
Hardcover, 336 pages

By the time we got to chapter 4 (p.48) my 9 year-old daughter said, “Mom, I’m bored.” I suspected as much because she didn’t beg me to read this book to her every spare moment as she did with some of the other books we’ve read. She was also somewhat irritated that the main character was always referred to as Julia Gillian. “Why don’t they just call her Julia?” she asked. Dare I say what the other characters were called? Bonwit, Cerise, Lathrop and … Zap. We had a good laugh over the last one. Needless to say, I think my daughter couldn’t relate to the characters and their story didn’t interest her.

This book is the latest in the Julia Gillian series. Readers who enjoyed her other books may also enjoy this one. As for us, we’ve decided to skip this series altogether.

Disclosure: Thank you to Nikole from Scholastic Canada for sending me this book for review. I was not compensated in any other way, nor told how to rate or review this product.