This book is about a girl named Nathalia (Nat) Bumolé whose father has decided to take her on a summer vacation to the south of France where she, her dad and best friend Darius (who will be smuggled into France by Nat and her dad because he doesn’t have a passport) can stay in a big French house.
The reason Nathalia is called Nathalia Buttface is because in the first book, Darius sees how she writes her name and likes to make fun of her. Having a particular way with words, Darius decided on Nathalia BUTTFACE.
Nat is very excited about the vacation, but knowing her father there must be a catch, and surprise, surprise there is! Nat’s father has agreed to the worst possible bargain in history. He, Nat and Darius can stay in the house for free, but only on condition that he patches the roof, fixes the floor boards, mends the hot water boiler, re-paints downstairs, re-wallpapers upstairs, repairs the windows, mows the lawn, puts in a cat-flap, tarmacs the driveway, plants some trees and gets rid of the ghost!
Nat isn’t so excited about this summer holiday trip. Can her dad really fix up the old, haunted dump in less than a month without embarrassing her and ruining her life? I don’t think so…
I didn’t find this book as amazing as I imagined it would be. I thought it would be better than the first book (Nathalia Buttface and the Most Embarrassing Dad in the World), but I was wrong. I found the plot superficial, and couldn’t really connect or relate to the characters, which I like to able to do in stories. I could, however, connect some of the characters to people I know and don’t really like!
This book didn’t interest me at all. I was expecting a lot more of a story because it has almost 400 pages. On top of that, I expected it to be a real page turner but it was not, which was very disappointing. I thought it would be funny to read about the embarrassing antics that Nat’s dad got up to, but what Nat found embarrassing was not necessarily embarrassing to me. I also found Nat’s behaviour a little bit over the top. I thought she was a drama queen and too harsh with her dad sometimes because she was trying to impress everyone, which didn’t really get her anywhere.
If I had to choose my favourite character, it would be Nat’s dad. Even though her dad knew he was embarrassing his daughter (not in a mean way), he continued doing silly things, which made the story funny in parts. I chuckled when her dad wore his ridiculous shorts in their front yard so that the entire neighbourhood could see him and when he tried to park his boat with his eyes closed and actually did!
I also really liked Darius, Nathalia’s super-bright best friend (and most disgusting person in the whole wide world) because is a true friend. He helped Nat and her dad get out of trouble with the security guard when they were on the barge and made sure that Nat’s dad won the car race he entered into with the security guard.
Overall, I think that the book could have been better. The title caught my eye, but the story did not live up to my expectations.
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Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
