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{{infobox infobox1
|title= Swimming Against the Tide
|author= Helen Bailey
|date= February 2009
|isbn=978-0340950302
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>0340950307</amazonuk> |amazonusaznuk=0340950307|aznus=<amazonus>0340950307</amazonus>
}}
With such a lengthy cast of characters you may think that you need to start reading about Electra from book one ''Life at the Shallow End''. Don't worry, this book stands on its own merits, and it is very easy to enter Electra's world. The big issues of Electra's life are dealt with alongside the typical teenage post mortems of every conversation of the school day. If you enjoy this title, you will want to read the rest, but it's not essential to start at the beginning. Helen Bailey has captured the day to day concerns of her heroine to a T. Electra's thoughts ring true whether she is worrying about her lack of boyfriends, coping with her parents, obsessing about how she looks, or even simply sticking her clothes through the wash without checking for tissues…
Like [[:Category:Louise Rennison|Louise Rennison]], Helen Bailey admits to a degree of ''borrowing'' from her own adolescence to create her characters, but Electra and her friends are very definitely present -day teenagers. Mobys and ipods are ever -present, with one girl suffering the ultimate humiliation of being dumped ''by text''. This adds credibility, and increases the sense of recognition girls in particular will feel when reading this book.
Electra's habit of thinking ''shallow thoughts in the midst of deeply serious situations'' could occasionally offend adult sensibilities. For example, the author embeds the news of Electra's grandma's potentially life -threatening illness in a series of jokey comments. To me this was simply how this teenager deals with frightening thoughts – disarm them with a joke. Read ''Swimming Against the Tide'' yourself, and [mailto:comments@thebookbag.co.uk tell Bookbag] what you think.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag. We also have a review of [[Running in Heels by Helen Bailey]].
[[Stop in the Name of Pants! by Louise Rennison]] is the book to try next if you have not read it, alongside the other stories about Electra by Helen Bailey.
