Can she make it sweet again?' - cover.-Young Opal Plumstead gives up her Scholarship and leaves school to work in a sweet factory, to help her family while her father is away fighting in the First World War. But the First World War is looming on the horizon, and will change Opal's life for ever And when Opal meets Morgan - Mrs Roberts' handsome son, and the heir to Fairy Glen - she believes she has found her soulmate.

But Opal idolizes Mrs Roberts, the factory's beautiful, dignified owner, who introduces her to the legendary Emmeline Pankhurst and her fellow suffragettes. Opal struggles to get along with the other workers, who think her snobby and stuck up. Yet her dreams are shattered when her father is sent to prison, and fourteen-year-old Opal must abandon school and start work at the Fairy Glen sweet factory. I give this book a 7/10 because through all its faults it was a good read, and one of Wilson's few enjoyable ones for older readers.Opal Plumstead is fiercely intelligent: a proud scholarship girl, with plans to go to university.

Though there were flaws in this novel, for example, Opal Plumstead (main character) acted like an 8-year-old instead of a 14-year-old, she had childish thoughts and ideals, the 'romance' in the story was very undeveloped at the start (of the romance itself, that is), it happened suddenly and I do understand that love does happen like that sometimes but it does not happen in the way it was presented in the book, like she only started having feelings of love for that person at some point in their relationship, and whatever relationships she has with men (that are not at large age older than her) seems to be romantic as if there is no such thing as men and women being friends.

I'm not going to lie and say it was the best book of the year, or my favourite book or that I was not bitter when first reading the book but it was able to make up for itself at the end and was able to prove a better novel than many of Jacqueline's previous books about similar subjects of rejects, and girls going from poor to rich ('worse' to 'better'), it had romance, tragedy, and happiness. Though I had few expectations of this book, it was a surprisingly interesting, funny, sad, and well-written book.

Opal Plumstead by Jacqueline Wilson