Critique

This book definitely had me at “Hello.” Starting with such an in your face statement about a thirteen-year-old girl being caught in by her father in the back of a car having sex with a much older boy can’t help but catch your attention. However, I digress. It did actually take me three attempts to read it all the way through because that initial page is both engaging and off-putting. I thought, “Do I really want to read a book that starts out like this?” Eventually, I overcame my prudish tendencies and delved in. I mean, it did get a Newbery nod, after all, so there must be more to it.

In fact, there is much, much more to the text. It’s not about a promiscuous teenager at all, but rather a young girl searching for an identity that shatters at the beginning of her teenage years, and she spends the next several years overcoming the sense of poor self worth and insecurity that such an incident would cause. 

Her cold and insensitive father and overbearing and somewhat neurotic mother don’t really help, but in the end, Deanna is able to work up the courage to become the person she’s always wanted to be, and drastically effects the lives of the people around her in a positive way because of it. Ultimately, it’s laced with redemption in the midst of disparaging circumstances, and Zarr leaps into the fray of reality throughout the text. I recommend this book to readers 14 – 18, skewing more toward girls.