Not My Problem

Not My Problem by Ciara Smyth

Book of the Week: 5 December 2021

Cover illustration by Spiros Halaris

Aideen and Maebh are personalities who are destined to clash. Aideen is struggling with most subjects at school and is more worried about her mum drinking and skipping work. She answers her form tutor back and forges notes from her mother to avoid lessons. In contrast, Maebh is the Principal’s daughter and ‘the intense overachiever type, with no hobbies other than winning’.

When Aideen finds Maebh sobbing in the girls’ changing room, Maebh explains she is so overwhelmed with work that she won’t succeed in the upcoming election for president of the student council, which she desperately wants to win. Her solution is to ask Aideen to push her down the stairs so she will break her ankle and can drop some of her commitments. Aideen unwillingly obliges, the ankle is sprained and a boy called Kavi Thakrar, who overheard the whole thing, scoops Maebh up to take her to the sick bay.

The following day, Aideen’s best and only friend, Holly, is disappointed to hear that Maebh, who is her only opponent in the race to be student council president, might not run for office. She dislikes Maebh with a vengeance. ‘Did she trip over her own ego?’ she asks, ‘Did she simply collapse under the weight of her own arrogance?’ Aideen doesn’t admit her part in the incident and doesn’t want to tell Holly that she and Maebh are now texting one another. The enthusiastically puppyish Kavi adds to the complications by bringing students to Aideen in secret because he believes she has the potential to be a fixer of problems. Aideen now has to keep various people’s secrets, including her relationship with Maebh and her own difficult home life, from everyone’s attention, particularly that of her sarcastic but dedicated teacher Ms Devlin, whose sharp repartee hides a willingness to go out of her way to help her students.

Some outrageous incidents and plenty of sharp banter don’t distract from the realism of Aideen’s life with her unpredictable mother and her chaotic school environment. Friendships are portrayed as complicated and, even when characters sabotage themselves and others, they are shown sympathetically. This is a funny, engaging read and a reassuring one, where events might not work out as you intended but where, if you are able to ask for help, there is always hope for the future.

If you like the Channel 4 TV series ‘Derry Girls’, or ‘Sex Education’ on Netflix, you might like this book because it has elements of both.

Suitable for older readers.