"I'm Zodiac Girl this month. Did you know that? It's a very special honour, you know."
The Zodiac Girl series is a Young Adult series of eight books written by Cathy Hopkins. Each book focuses on a young teenager/preteen with a different zodiac sign who is going through a tough time and is at a turning point in her life. The ten planets, who each have a human form, offer her guidance for one month, in which she typically turns her life around or learns a lesson. Typically, none of the characters meets all ten planets, and emphasis is put on the planet that is ruler of their sign as they act as guardian for the month, eg: Uranus for Aquarius. The books can be read as standalone, as the only thing connecting them is the setting and the planets.
Although there are twelve star signs, complications with publishing houses prevented books for the following signs: Cancer, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. Word of God states that she had planned out the books, but was unable to write them.
The current books are (with zodiac signs in brackets):
- Dancing Queen (Aries)
- Discount Diva (Taurus)
- From Geek To Goddess (Gemini)
- Brat Princess (Leo)
- Star Child (Virgo)
- Bridesmaids' Club (Libra)
- Double Trouble (Scorpio)
- Recipe For Rebellion (Sagittarius)
Tropes found in this book series:
- Alpha Bitch: Sara from From Geek To Goddess. She generally goes out of her way to make Gemma feel unwelcome, even inviting the other girls to a midnight feast on the same night as Gemma to eliminate her chances of making friends.
- Beta Bitch: Mercedes and Lois are this to Sara. Subverted with Tasha, who is one of their friends but isn't sure she wants their friendship and eventually ditches them.
- Always Identical Twins: Eve and Lilith from Double Trouble. One little girl even mistakes Eve for a clone.
- An Aesop: In-universe, every girl learns something to keep with them:
- Marsha: Making things happen takes hard work and determination.
- Tori: Use your talents to make your luck, and money isn't a measure of your worth.
- Gemma: Magic is all around, and it's worth making mistakes to find your calling.
- Leonora: Let your feelings be heard, and let people in - just because you couldn't save someone doesn't mean you can't help another.
- Thebe: You can't control everything - know when to let go.
- Chloe: Make choices, but let others make their own choices too, and look at situations from every angle.
- Eve: Don't be afraid to be yourself.
- Danu: If you're not happy with the hand fate has dealt you, there's always some ways to improve it - just find the right ways.
- Animal Lover: Gemma from From Geek To Goddess has this hinted at and later stated outright. When finding her inner goddess, she is Caipora, known as "Lady of The Beasts" and protector of animals. Later on, Gemma attempts to take her pet dog to Chiron House under the impression that animal companionship is helpful, not realizing that her dog isn't well-behaved enough or trained. Eventually, the school's benefactor donates extra money to the Outreach programme at her school to bring in experts on animals trained to help people.
- Boarding School: Gemma moving to one of these in ''From Geek To Goddess" is one of the reasons she is at a turning point in her life.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Leonora from Brat Princess has several tantrums during the first half of the book and gains the titular nickname due to her behaviour. Some of the other Zodiac Girls behave this way at some point.
- Also applies to Marilyn and Lynn from Brat Princess. Like Leonora, their parents send them to boot camp for acting up, and the Epilogue shows that they did eventually benefit.
- Break the Cutie: Being a Zodiac Girl means that the girl is going through a tough time, so this generally will happen at some point in the story before things improve. Notable instances include Tori crying in the bus shelter after wasting money on scratch cards whens she was supposed to be buying her brother's birthday present and Marsha doing something very similar and her best friend ditching her.
- Can also join with Break the Haughty, as with Leonora in most instances. The incident that caused her to become bratty was a Break the Cutie moment, while her breaking down about it near the end is her Break the Haughty moment.
- Bully Magnet: Most of the people attending Mario's self-defense class are this, including people who are attacked due to weight (both overweight and underweight), age and race. One elderly woman is still badly injured from being attacked and is attending the class so that it never happens again.
- Call-Back: In Star Child, Thebe tells her friend that one girl stamped on the phone she was given as Zodiac Girl. This most likely refers to Leonora from Brat Princess, who deliberately broke her phone the day she got it by stamping on it until it was literally smithereens.
- Career-Ending Injury: Marsha in Dancing Queen is disappointed when she hurts her ankle and arm and can't dance a part in a play that she desperately wanted, even dyeing her hair white so she looked the part. Her roommate Skye also has a leg injury that stops her from entering a dance competition. She still enters as part of a group, even helping write the rap they dance to.
- Cathartic Scream and Cathartic Crying: Selene does this often. She has a major cry during Discount Diva when she finds Tori in the bus shelter, also crying. She also has a counselling session Eve in Double Trouble where screaming is one of the therapies used to get out frustration. Eve does find that this works, but later on has to scream out the secret she tells her family because she's so stressed about having to say it (that being that she's scared of the dark and hates the spook nights she has with her siblings).
- Chekhov's Skill: In From Geek To Goddess, Gemma desperately wants a certain part in the school production, and even performs one of the musical numbers she's practised in front of Ruth, who tells her how good the performance is. She fluffs her audition, but the girl who gets the part she wanted has to quit due to animal allergies brought on by ostrich feathers and possible dog and cat hair. With no replacement planned for, Gemma is given the role and due to all the practice she's done for the role, she does really well.
- Invoked in Recipe For Rebellion when Danu goes to Mario's self-defense classes. She is almost mugged for her zodiac phone just before the classes, and then the same boys who went for her try to break into her flat. After a week of the classes, the boys try to mug her aunt, and the skills she's developed give her the chance to take the boys down and they're still incapacitated by the time the police arrive.
- Coming of Age Story: Sort of a case for all of the Zodiac Girls. They are chosen in a month where their life is at a turning point, which means it's a hard month for them. They eventually all learn something that makes them happier later on in life.
- Control Freak: An interesting case with Thebe, who as a Virgo, needs to keep her life in order and hates to feel out of control. The main lesson in her story is to know when to let things go.
- Cool Bike: Hermie's motorcycle. A few of the girls even get to ride it. Acts as a modern counterpart to his mythological form, which portrayed him (Mercury) as a winged messenger.
- Cool Old Guy: Dr Cronus occasionally shows himself to be this, such as when he does acrobatics in Dancing Queen. Most of the time he's a Grumpy Old Man crossed with a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
- Cool Old Lady: Mrs Hamilton in From Geek To Goddess. Despite needing to live in an assisted care home, she relates to Gemma's age group very well. It turns out at the end that she was once a Zodiac Girl when she was young. She is also the only known Aquarius Zodiac Girl.
- Also Eve and Lilith's grandmother, known as Nonna. Her idea of a housewarming present is to have the new house completely redecorated, and she has no problem letting Eve go to her counselling session on Hermie's motorbike.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Every girl is told that the planets are on Earth in human form, and often take some convincing, but it IS actually true. Some believe it, while some don't get the full picture. Danu from Recipe For Rebellion thinks it's a crazy idea until seeing proof that Joe (Jupiter) can turn into a centaur at will and completely believes everything afterwards. In contrast, Leonora admits that she's not sure if the planets were ever legitimate, but isn't too bothered about it. Eve actually admits straight out that anyone saying that they are a planet is probably crazy and it's most likely a good idea not to buy into it.
- Tori's friend Megan from Discount Diva believes in fairies and magic, and is the person to convince Tori that the planets might really be who they say they are. She does this by explaining how an apple pip becoming a tree is just as magical as the planets being on earth in human form.
- Cute Bookworm: Ruth, Gemma's roommate from From Geek To Goddess. Her inner goddess is said to be an Egyptian one known as "mistress of books".
- Delinquent Hair: Danu's dreadlocks with pink and green wool threaded through them. She specifically did this to look like a delinquent.
- Failures on Ice: Thebe is terrified of this happening to her in Star Child, visiting the ice rink several times but ending up too scared to attempt skating. Eventually, Hermie persuades her to try again and he and her parents help her until she can skate on her own.
- Fear Is the Appropriate Response: Eve points out that fear can be your friend sometimes during her first session with Selene. However, her fears tend to be a waste of energy - as Hermie points out, it spells out "False expectations appearing real".
- I Know You Know I Know: The scene when Hermie first visits Thebe's house and her dad explains he knows about the planets being around in human form and how Zodiac Girls work plays out this way. Thebe herself also knows before any of the planets visit that her chart shows it's her time to be a Zodiac Girl and treats it as good luck, expressing shock that she repeatedly feels pushed aside in her own month.
- Thebe is the only Zodiac Girl to completely understand what being a Zodiac Girl means, but she still has trouble figuring out what the planets are trying to tell her.
- I Just Want to Be Special: Eve from Double Trouble feels second-best to her twin, because Lilith seems to get everything and is afraid of nothing. Eve wants to get out of her shadow, and part of her story involves her becoming brave enough to become her own person.
- I Was Having Such a Nice Dream: Eve's reaction when Lilith wakes her up for laughing in her sleep. This is her first success in controlling her dreams after receiving advice from Captain John Dory (Neptune) about how to use affirmations and practising to stop her nightmares.
- Important Haircut: Gemma gets her hair done at Pentangles during her second week as Zodiac Girl and lives up to the book title From Geek To Goddess.
- Danu also gets her hair done, first having her dreadlocks cut off and then getting blonde hair extensions that makes her feel like the person she was before the upheaval in her life. The epilogue reveals that her real hair grew back quickly.
- Inelegant Blubbering: Selene aka the Moon is prone to this, despite being a counselor. In one scene, she sits down next to a crying Tori in a bus shelter and makes Tori's tears look pretty by comparison. Justified since her planet governs strong emotions (and as she points out, a word coming from the moon is "lunatic").
- At the end of Recipe For Rebellion, Aunt Esme has a moment where she does this.
- Inevitably Broken Rule: Early on in Star Child, we learn that all the planets react strangely to honey. Later on, they are served homemade fruit punch from an aunt, and only after they've been drinking it does the family get the message that there's a LOT of honey in the punch. Chaos ensues.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Just about every planet falls into this category at least once. Their intentions are always good, to help the Zodiac Girl to reach her potential, but they can often make themselves less likable by doing so. Special mention goes to Dr Cronus, although he has good moments in some books.
- Lunacy: Selene openly admits to being insane in Star Child, and she is the Moon. Zodiac Girls that meet her often mentally comment that she seems seriously unstable for a counsellor.
- The Makeover: Gemma in From Geek To Goddess. Gemma can't believe how much better she looks after the makeover. Her roommate Ruth gets the same treatment, and both react with delighted shock when they see each other's transformation.
- Meaningful Name: Some of the girls are named with references to their star sign - Gemma Gemini, Leonora Leo, and Tori Taurus.
- The planets also often have names related to the Greek name of the Roman god their planet was named for. Mercury is called Hermie after "Hermes" and Saturn is Dr Cronus after the god. Also Hermie is Dr Cronus' grandson and Joe's (Jupiter)son, which is in line with Greek legend when Cronus was Zeus' father and Hermes was one of Zeus' sons.
- The Sun's first name is Sonny.
- The Moon's surname is Luna.
- In Double Trouble, Adam is named after the biblical first man, Lilith was named because it means "first woman", and Eve is the second twin and named after the second person in the Bible.
- Not with Them for the Money: A non-romantic version with Tori and her friends in Discount Diva. Tori is terrified that her friends will ditch her if they discover how poor her family is. After she finally confesses to her friends, they tell her they don't care how much money her family has and the other girls reveal insecurities about being dropped from the group for their own reasons.
- One-Steve Limit: Interestingly, averted as a few names are used more than once for background characters. Notably, one of Sara's friends in From Geek To Goddess shares her name with Marsha's best friend from Dancing Queen.
- Perfection Is Addictive: Thebe from Star Child makes an attempt to slack off and chill, but while watching her parents clean, sees they aren't doing it right and jumps up to make sure it's perfect.
- Plagued by Nightmares: Eve in Double Trouble has trouble getting to sleep on her own and constantly has nightmares when she does fall asleep. This eventually goes away when she is given a nightlight and has a new room exactly to her taste.
- Poster-Gallery Bedroom: Invoked by PJ on two occasions. As an interior designer, he is hired for the family from Double Trouble and both twins are excited to find their dream bedrooms - very similar to each others', but with totally different colour schemes (Eve's liking for beauty meaning her room is mostly pink and silver, with Lilith having a room with goth decor). This also happens in Recipe For Rebellion when Danu wins a free flat makeover, and her bedroom shows much more of her personality once it's done.
- Thebe's whole house is this. Her dad is an astrologer and decorated every room to simulate a planet. Thebe's sister eventually painted over her room, which was the Moon, but that's all (although Selene is quite upset that she was the only planet to get painted over when she visits). Ironically, Thebe's bedroom is the Venus room, even though her ruling planet is Mercury.
- Only Friend: Leonora's dog Coco is confirmed to be the only one she is consistently nice to. She even states that pets make the best friends.
- Quest for Identity: A few of the girls have this as part of their personality. Thebe from Star Child feels like everyone finds her boring and like nothing, but in the end, Hermie tells her that this isn't true and that she has great potential.
- Similarly, Eve from Double Trouble realizes that she doesn't really have much idea about who she is. By the end of the book, she has differentiated herself from her sister and has her own personality back.
- Really 700 Years Old: The planets have been around in human form since the dawn of time, but you wouldn't know it from how most of them look. Special mention goes to Hermie, who is always described as appearing to be no older than twenty. In "From Geek To Goddess", Mrs Hamilton reacts with shock when she discovers not only is he still around, but he still looks the same as he did when she was a schoolgirl.
- Rich Bitch: Leonora at the start of Brat Princess. After reforming, she Took a Level in Kindness.
- Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Mrs Compton-Grimes in From Geek To Goddess is an elderly lady Gemma is asked to visit. Within two minutes, she's extremely rude to Gemma, telling her to go away and saying that she's very irritating when all she's said is "Hello, can I help you with anything?". She also wants to get Gemma expelled just for trying to apologize for a misguided good deed that went horribly wrong, so she also comes off as a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk.
- Secret Identity: The only person who's allowed to know that the planets are there in human form is the Zodiac Girl (even though there's one per month, so that adds up). Most people just see the planets with their regular day jobs such as actor, counsellor, delivery service, salon owner, etc. Averted in Star Child where Thebe and her parents make no secret of knowing who the planets are.
- The Smurfette Principle: To be fair, there's two female planets (Venus and the Moon) rather than just one, but that's in comparison to eight male planets.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Comes up quite a lot.
- Leonora from Brat Princess is a spoiled brat because she's too afraid to let anyone get close after her little sister Poppy dies. Her main lesson to learn is to "let it out", and to let her guard down.
- Danu is so angry that she's had to leave her old home and school that she causes as much trouble as she can in an attempt to get expelled. One of the lessons she learns is to make the most of the cards she's been dealt by accepting what she can't change and making things better where she can, and even she admits that she's tired of trying to be a problem student when at home, she was unusually well-behaved in school, so much that her friends teased her about it.
- Thebe's cousin Yasmin in Star Child acts this way, but confesses near the end that it's because she feels as if she's boring, while Thebe's family is all quirky and colourful. Thebe herself is surprised, because she thought she was the boring one.
- Spoiled Sweet: Tori's friends in Discount Diva. Also hinted that Leonora was like this before she turned into a brat, as she stated she used to have loads of friends, and it's also suggested that she returns to this behaviour by the end, when she has an Uncle Pennybags moment to help out the other kids at boot camp.
- Tantrum Throwing: Leonora often does this if she has anything on hand when she has tantrums, which happen a lot during the first half of Brat Princess. She stops doing this when she starts to understand that screaming and throwing things isn't getting her anywhere.
- Title Drop: It doesn't take long for one of the other girls at boot camp to keep calling Leonora "brat princess". In one scene, Leonora threatens to refuse to cooperate if she is called that name again. It happens.
- Thebe's best friend calls her "star child" at the start of a chapter, partly because she's wearing a dress with stars all over it.
- Theme Twin Naming: Eve and Lilith. Lilith is the elder twin and the first born daughter, and her name means "first woman". Eve was the name of the second person to be created in the Bible, just as she is the second twin.
- The twins' older brother is named Adam, as he was the first-born son.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Chloe is the girly-girl to her sisters Clare and Jane (not tomboys, but closer to tomboy than girly-girl). Chloe is not sure where her sister Marcie is as she used to be more like Chloe but gets more like the two older sisters as she ages.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Leonora's younger sister Poppy. She died of an asthma attack after bullies stole her inhaler. Leonora blames herself as she was meant to be walking home with Poppy but went off with one of her friends. This is the main reason Leonora acts the way she does - because she never got over Poppy's death.
- Twin Switch: Eve and Lilith try to do this in Double Trouble since Eve isn't as interested in being Zodiac Girl as Lilith is and wouldn't mind letting her take her place. PJ knows immediately that they're trying to trick him and explains that it's not possible to give it to Lilith.
- Unwanted Glasses Plot: Gemma gets ugly glasses just before auditioning for the school play. The drama teacher thinks she's wearing them as part of a costume for a different role. Luckily, she later on gets cooler glasses.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: A dream Leonora has about having died has her family's chef saying this, showing that her bratty act only began after Poppy's death.
- Villain Protagonist: Brat Princess starts out with Leonora being one, but the whole point of the book is to help her grow out of it.
- Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: Often the case, especially in "Recipe For Rebellion". Only happens in dialogue.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: In universe, no one can figure out exactly what PJ's accent is. Overlaps with Vampire Vords because although he is not a vampire, he does have that problem and has been mistaken for Dracula, apparently on more than one occasion. Danu asks if he's Russian, to which he says it doesn't matter and he likes to think of himself as Universal.
- Workaholic: Aunt Esme from Recipe For Rebellion. She admits at the end that she does it because she has no life, and she cuts back on her hours eventually.
- Working Out Their Emotions: An early step Leonora takes is when Mr O gives her a punching bag and encourages her to channel her anger into punching the bag. This is ultimately cathartic for her, but she still locks out the bully that caused her sister's death and doesn't use her feelings towards her on the bag.
- You Can't Fight Fate: None of the characters really resist fate exactly, but what's in their chart is set in stone - the planets tell them that their reaction is what counts.
- You No Take Candle: Rosa from Recipe For Rebellion is Polish and speaks in broken English throughout the book. Danu starts labelling everything in the apartment to help her English.
