Shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Awards 2021, Best Story
This funny, gentle story is packed with snappy humour and hilarious characters. You can’t help but love Riley, a brilliant, witty, world-weary kid and long-suffering underdog. There’s a lovely message about being grateful for all the things that you have and for appreciating the people who support you, no matter what. Perfect for Diary of a Wimpy Kid fans or children about to start secondary school, though there’s a lot of fun to be had for grown ups here too.
After a traumatic run-in with the fortune teller from a visiting funfair - thanks to an unfortunately-timed sneeze - Riley finds himself CURSED. Life as he knows it quickly becomes a catalogue of disasters - from wetting himself onstage during the school show, accidentally supergluing himself to his classmates and ruining the school football team's sponsorship deal, to flooding his house and losing class 4's pet rabbit - Riley knows the bad luck is out to get him. Enter new kid: Brad Chicago. He's super-cool, well-groomed and stylish, with an excellent stationery collection. And for some reason he wants to be Riley's friend. Can Riley get rid of the curse before Brad discovers he's a walking disaster?
Simon James Green is one of the UK’s leading writer’s of LGBTQ+ teen fiction. His YA novels include Noah Can’t Even; Alex in Wonderland, which was nominated for the Carnegie medal and selected as one of the top 20 LGBT books of 2019 by Attitude; Heartbreak Boys, and Gay Club!, which was nominated for the YOTO Carnegie Medal 2023
