Opal Plumstead

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Will Ernest’s story be accepted or not? If he does, will their life be better? Or if it does not, will everything change for ever? It was so boring and repetitive, and yet it had lots of themes (like family, and Opal's work, and the whole Morgan romance, and the Suffragette movement) as any book should. Mother had found out about Cassie meeting Mr Evandale and so she went to live with him when mother said she could live with Mr Evandale if they wanted to still go out or stay at home and stop going out with Mr Evandale. Fourteen-year-old Opal Plumstead is a scholarship girl at a posh school. She hopes to go to university, though her real love is painting. She copes with not fitting in at school (she’s plump and shabbily dressed) because her best friend, Olivia, is on her side. Then tragedy strikes. Her father, an overworked clerk with literary aspirations, is caught forging a cheque and ends up in prison; Olivia is forbidden to see her; and Opal must leave school and go to work at Mrs Roberts’ sweet factory, ‘Fairy Glen’, where she’s bullied. Her life becomes utterly miserable.

Now Cassandra, don’t go throwing yourself at any man that makes eyes at you, go for the wealthy ones.”

when I tell you if you can read this book, please please do - and do be deceived by the cover or the author even because this book has me feeling so many emotions even as a 15 year old. Mrs Plumstead is evil incarnate, plain and simple. Literally all she cares about is social status and looking good to her neighbours. A desperate delusion since she's as poor as dirt and so is her neighbourhood. She treats Opal like absolute shit and lavishes praise on her prettier, brainless socialite daughter Cassie. She only treats her husband with the barest minimum of humanity when he's making them money. She didn't work before her husband was arrested because she believes that no respectable woman should once she's married and has children. She calls suffragettes " man-hating harridans", and silly and hysterical. She insists that men know best. She forces fourteen-year-old Opal to give up her scholarship for further education to work in the sweet factory - to support the family, but Mummy Dearest never liked the idea of women having an education, so I'm sure this is more of her scheming. But their Poor Poor father - I don't think ive ever felt so much empathy before. See I got him - I understood it, why he faked the cheque and wanted everyone to be happy. I understood his dream like state in court and I got is withered frail figure once he finally returned at the end of the story. It broke my heart seeing him how he was at the end, and the relationship between him and Opal slowly fading is such a saddening part of the story. Why I wrote this I have no idea. I hope my editor doesn't see it. I will be hanged for my run-on sentences. But some things needed to be said for the lightness of my heart if nothing else. I understand that this will not necessarily extend past my experience. Regardless, Wilson's work is necessary in every young girl's library. Her name on beat-up copies at used book fairs will always calm my heart. "You are the fighters of our futures."

Who is Jacqueline Wilson? An esteemed children's author who writes sad stories about poor, unprivileged youths. And when Jacqueline Wilson attempts to write a historical novel for teens...well, it was just never meant to be, as demonstrated by 'Opal Plumstead'. Her mother has no job and looks after Opal, Cassie and their father. Her father works as a writer, who has just had a book read by the publishers and is now doing it up in neat for it to be published (this is his first book going to be published). Her sister, Cassie, works in a hat shop called Madame Alouettes.

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Comparing this book to other “memoirs” this one had to the most detail. Like “Katy” written by Jacqueline Wilson. It was more brief in that story, whereas in this book the descriptive language painted a movie in my head the whole time, there were no parts where it got boring.