Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that the central event is an attempted, though ultimately unsuccessful, rape. There's also a fair amount of swearing, drinking, and smoking by teens.
Families who read this book could discuss Annabel's central problem -- why is she unable to talk about what has happened to her? Why does she find it so difficult to be honest about her feelings? How have her own actions caused her to be in the miserable situation in which she finds herself? Also worth discussing are Owen's ideas about music and Whitney's eating disorder.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
Until near the end, this is a almost plotless book, and it covers pretty familiar territory. Most of it is about Annabel's misery at school and home, her inability to deal forthrightly with any of her problems, and her developing relationship with troubled outcast Owen.
Though the author doesn't reveal the pivotal event until near the end, most readers will have figured it out almost from the beginning. So how, then, can this novel be so completely engrossing, so difficult to put down, and ultimately so moving, not only to the teen girls who are its target audience, but to anyone?
Part of the secret lies in the author's exquisite attention to detail. Each moment is rendered so clearly and vividly that readers can easily enter Annabel's world. The characterizations are equally vivid, especially menacing Owen who, with his bizarre musical tastes and theories and his unusual life outside school, is a real original. In all of the main and secondary characters there's an intriguing emotional complexity that is usually missing in teen problem novels. It may seem odd to say it about a book in which, for large stretches, so little actually happens, but this is a real page-turner.
From The Book
I had other friends, of course. People I knew from my classes, and from the Lakeview Models, which I'd been doing for years now. It was becoming clear, though, that my self-imposed isolation during the summer had been more effective than I realized. Right after everything happened, I'd cut myself off entirely, figuring this was safer than risking people judging me. I blew off phone calls, and avoided people when I saw them out at the mall or the movies. I didn't want to talk about what had happened, so it seemed safest not to talk at all. The result, however, was that now all morning, when I'd stopped to say hello to girls I knew, or walked up to groups of people chatting, I'd felt an instant coolness and distance, one that lingered until I made my excuses and walked away. Back in May, all I'd wanted was to be alone. Now I'd gotten my wish.
Plot Summary:
Annabel's life looks pretty good. She has a loving family, lives in a beautiful home, and is a successful teen model. But her junior year of high school is looking to be the worst year of her life.
Her mother has been fragile and depressed since the death of her own mother. Her sisters are fighting all the time, and one of them is hostile and dangerously anorexic. Annabel wants to quit modeling, but is afraid to tell her mother. And she has lost all of her friends because of something that happened at the beginning of the summer that she is unable to talk about, and that her classmates and former friends have drastically misunderstood.
The only person who will talk to her is Owen, a loner with a juvenile record, anger management issues, and strange taste in music. But there's one thing he knows all about -- how to be honest.
Related Books:
Other Books by Sarah Dessen
Someone Like You
That Summer
Keeping the Moon
The Truth About Forever
Dreamland
This Lullaby
Books with Similar Themes
Weeping Willow by Ruth White
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Facts Speak for Themselves by Brock Cole
Related Web sites
Author's Site
Author's Blog
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Sexual ContentSome kissing and making out, references to teens who have had sex. |
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ViolenceA few punches and an attempted rape. A mention of castration. |
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LanguageFour-letter words and sexual slurs. |
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Social Behavior |
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CommercialismClothing, mp3 player, car, soft drink brands mentioned. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoTeens drink and smoke, some drunkenness. |
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