Lila Mackay is Very Misunderstood

Author: Sims, Gill

Interest age: from c 12 years

Published on 14 August 2025 by HarperCollins Publishers (Electric Monkey) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 352 pages
197 x 130 x 23 | 240g

The No.1 bestselling author of the Why Mummy series is back with her very first book for young YA readers!

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Fourteen-year-old Emily is gloomily spending the summer with her mum’s best friend Uncle Tom, helping him renovate his house, instead of being at home hoping the gorgeous Toby will ask her out. Worse, she’s broken her phone and left her iPad at her dad’s house. How is she supposed to survive without her tech, her BFF and her social life? No one understands her despair, least of all the boomers.

Then she finds her mum’s old diary. MASSIVE CRINGE. But as Emily starts to read, she’s stunned to discover that her mum was once a teenager too. A nineties teenager called Lila MacKay, who was VERY MISUNDERSTOOD. It’s a long-forgotten era of weird fashions, TV shows and music Emily’s never heard of. There are boys too, notably cute Park Boy Tom and her mum’s dorky neighbour Weird Nicky. And as she becomes more and more invested in Lila’s teenage life, Emily begins to wonder if perhaps she and her mother are not so different after all…

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Perfect for fans of Geek Girl and readers who are that next age up from Lottie Brooks.

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Readers LOVE Lila Mackay!

“I can't wait to find out what happens next for Lila as I know there are more diaries to read! Perfect for fans of Lottie Brooks. I was looking for a new series to get into!!” – Nia, 13

“Absolutely brilliant!'

“Every time I put it down, my 16-year-old daughter picks it up and reads it!”

“I am clearly not the demographic for this novel (but can identify greatly with it as I was a teenager in the nineties) – however, my daughter IS, and she genuinely really, really loves it!'