Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this is a mature book. Cameron and Jenna both had lonely lives as children, and endured a horrific event when Cameron's father tried to bully them into playing a sex game. When Cameron reappears in Jenna's life, Jenna begins binge eating and shoplifting again. Cameron, too, has unresolved issues, and is currently living without a home or family. Jenna's stepfather also catches them in bed together. Beyond that, there is also some light swearing, drinking, and kissing.
Families can talk about reinvention. Can you think of other books and movies in which a character goes from nerdy to popular (think even as far back as Cinderella)? Why are we fascinated with this idea in our culture? How do these stories usually end? How is Jenna a different sort of ugly duckling?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Kate Pavao
This is a dark book. Even readers drawn to the carefully crafted story here may be overwhelmed by the mature problems Jenna and Cameron deal with here. Between them they face bullies, homelessness, abuse, shoplifting, binge eating, and more -- Jenna even grows up believing Cameron is dead. The several flashbacks to that fateful day when Cameron's abusive father tries to get the kids to play a sex game is likewise both well drawn and creepy.
Jenna's ability to start dealing with the past -- and become the person she wants to be -- is heroic. And it's convincing, too, thanks to a realistically imperfect cast of secondary characters, especially Jenna's mother. In the end, this is a book for mature readers only, but those who are ready will be moved by this story of Jenna and Cameron's intense attachment. And they will appreciate that Jenna not only accepts herself for who she truly is, but learns to see the strengths she has had all along.
From The Book
Right before seventh grade, my mom married Alan and we moved and I was in a new school district where there would be no Jordana. I changed my name to Jenna so no one else could come up with Fattifer as a nickname, and so I could stop hearing it in my head. The resurected me, Jenna Vaughn, lived in a nice house in the Avenues and had friends and a loving stepfather and a wardrobe in a normal size. She smelled like vanilla spice body oil and kept her hair conditioned and her cuticles trimmed.
Jenna Vaughn has made it. I had made it. It was my last year of high school and no one had ever found me out. I even had a boyfriend, Ethan, who picked me up for school every day and liked to snuggle and was only sometimes impatient with me.
The problem was that Jennifer Harris didn't always cooperate, and there were still days I could hear her scratching the coffin lid, particularly on her -- on my -- birthday. Like my seventeenth.
Plot Summary:
Jenna Vaughn used to be named Jennifer Harris. She was fat, dirty, and often home alone. At school, she -- and her only friend Cameron -- used to get picked on by their school's mean kids. After Cameron moves away (and, according to the kids at school, dies in an accident), she decides to transform into someone new: a pretty, skinny, happy girl whom everyone likes. But will Jenna be able to keep her unhappy past from resurfacing when years later Cameron moves back to town?
Related Books:
Also by Sara Zarr:
Story of a Girl
Other Love Stories:
How They Met: And Other Stories by David Levithan
Mistletoe by Melissa de la Cruz, Aimee Friedman, Nina Malkin, and Hailey Abbott
Forever by Judy Blume
How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend by Janette Rallison
The Breakup Bible by Melissa Kantor
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Sexual ContentSome kissing and making out. Jenna's stepfather finds her in bed with Cameron, though nothing is going on. |
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ViolenceJenna flashes back to a childhood memory of Cameron's father trying to get the kids to play a sex game. There are more references to his dad being abusive. |
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LanguageStuff like "hell," "bitch," "ass," etc. |
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Social BehaviorJenna both binge eats and shoplifts, childhood habits that reemerge with Cameron's return. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoSome drinking at a party. |
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