You Will Be Missed Louise Rennison

Yesterday, I found out one of my favourite writers, Louise Rennison, had died in February and I hadn’t even realised. I grew up with The Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series as they were a big part of my teenage years. I remember always purchasing one of her books every time I went to visit my grandma. My dad would always treat me as I loved reading and in the countryside, where my grandma lived, things to do were pretty limited.

Rennison’s books were my comfort when my grandma passed away. I kept rereading them to remind me of the memories I had at hers but they also played a key factor in making me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry. They provided me an escape when secondary school got to be to much. School was never easy for me and majority of the time it made me miserable, but all I had to do was pick up one of Rennison’s books and I’d immediately forget the world. It was normally the seventh book since that was my favourite and ironically the first book I had read of hers. I even remember dragging my friends to see the film on the day of its release, I was so excited!  

It was weird. The last book I read was the The Taming of The Tights at the beginning of my first year at uni. It was probably the last book I read for pleasure in that year. I never knew it would actually be the last one she would have written. I hadn’t kept track of her work after that, as uni sort of consumed my life for the following 3 years. Not to mention, it always used to put me in massive reading slumps where the thought of picking up a book, even for pleasure, made me feel sick. However, since graduating, I managed to find my love for reading again which led me back to The Taming of The Tights. I decided to download the next one in the series only to come up empty on amazon. This was strange, so I went on Goodreads (A site I love and always use) and saw that she hadn’t written a book in the last three years and then I spotted a message saying she had died. At first, I thought that couldn’t be correct. I mean surely I would have seen something earlier, right? So questioning the statement on Goodreads, I went on her actual website and saw the statement below had been posted.

“It is with huge sadness that we can confirm the death of our much loved author and friend, Louise Rennison. In life, as in her writing, she brought joy and laughter. Our thoughts are with her family, friends and you readers whose lives she touched. As the Ace Gang would say… “Let your creativitosity run wild and free!”

When I read this, I felt extremely sad as her books meant a lot to me. I did not know Louise Rennison personally but I did know her writing and had a great appreciation for it. Through her books, she had the ability to make people laugh, (like me) possibly cry and maybe question the sanity of British teenage girls. Let’s be honest, we’ve all seen someone go overboard with the fake tan in Britain. I will never risk looking like a wotsit. I hope her books will continue making people laugh and want to be part of the infamous Ace gang. You will be missed Louise Rennison.