Secret Scribbled Notebooks by Joanne Horniman

This is an Australian novel than won a literary award. There are Aussie terms in this book but not so many as to make it difficult to understand.

First Kate and Sophie's mother abandonded the girls and their father, then one day their father was also gone. They were raised by Lil who was no relation but loved them all the same.
Kate has three spiral notebooks, red, yellow, blue, each used differently. In them she writes about her last year of school before college. She writes about her wonderful first love, about the stranger in the book store, about all the books she reads and about Sophie and Sophie's new baby daughter Nettie. She writes about beloved Lil and fear of losing her too, about friends, about leaving soon for college and all she will leave behind. Its a quiet book, yearning maybe, a little sad but very wonderful, I thought.
jdw