A review by beckyyreadss
The Bed and Breakfast Star by Jacqueline Wilson

adventurous challenging dark emotional fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I originally read this book when I was around 11 years old. However, during lockdown and doing some spring cleaning I came across my set of Jacqueline Wilson books that I have. I decided I would re-read and then review them. I don’t remember this one, so it was like reading it for the first time again. 

This book is based on Elsa. She is known as a Bed and Breakfast kid, but she likes to call herself the Bed and Breakfast Star. She loves to tell jokes and she knows she is going to be big one day – doing what she does best, making people laugh. But after her family lost their house and moved into a run-down hotel, it seems like no one wants to laugh anymore. Despite the circumstances, Elsa is still determined to be a star.  

This book was brutal for a children’s book. It’s a book that affects thousands of children every day. For children, staying in a new room with places to explore is exciting, for an adult and wondering how and where they are going to get their next meal was terrifying especially with reading it now with the cost of living. Elsa is very mature for her age that you forget throughout the book that she is only ten years old, yet she is looking after her siblings and making sure they are getting fed when her abusive stepfather is hungover, and her mother just can’t get out of bed. The side characters have personalities within this book, and it doesn’t feel like they are just there to move the story along.  

Throughout the book, Elsa gets hate and abuse for her loud personality and how loud she is general, so it was nice to see that her loud voice helped everyone in the end, especially coming from a loud child I get what she felt like. I liked that this had some nice ending with them not having to worry as much, it would have been better if the stepfather left the family because he was the villain in this book, in my opinion, as well as the manager. 
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