Scars Like Wings
By Mary Cosola,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Inspiring story of a burned teen finding her new normal.
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What's the Story?
In SCARS LIKE WINGS, 16-year-old Ava Lee is trying to figure out how to move forward in life after a house fire killed her parents and cousin and left her severely disfigured. She now lives with her aunt and uncle after spending months in the hospital after the fire. With encouragement from them and her therapist, Ava agrees to try returning to high school. She's terrified of the reaction she will receive but decides it’s better to start a new school than face life at her previous school, where she had good friends and was a musical theater star. Things go as horribly as expected until she meets Piper, an outgoing, boisterous survivor of a car crash. Ava has spent the past year pushing people away, quietly dealing with her trauma alone. Piper also pushes people away, but she refuses to do anything quietly and forces Ava out of her shell at her new school. Even though Ava encounters typical teen stuff in school, nothing about her life is typical anymore. She wants to participate in the school musical, date, and make friends, but she doesn’t feel like she's worthy of anything good anymore and wonders who could ever want to be around someone with her physical and emotional scars. As she comes out of her self-imposed protective shell, she risks getting hurt but gains empathy for the people around her. The story shows the lasting impact of traumatic events and how most people are dealing with scars of their own, whether or not they're visible.
Is It Any Good?
A teen disfigured in a fire copes with devastating loss and the difficulty of finding her new normal in this inspiring and engaging story. High school is hard enough without facing it dramatically scarred, but in Scars Like Wings, Ava Lee has to do just that. Navigating a new school with severe burns is the ultimate test of her will and confidence. By putting Ava in that position, author Erin Stewart heightens the stakes in the typical teen issues high schoolers face, such as cliques, self-esteem, friendships, and dating, but there’s enough humor in the story to lighten the heaviness of the topic.
Ava's story and her friendship with Piper provide great insight into the different ways people deal with trauma. Ava shuts the world out, saying that she's giving her old friends a pass on having to deal with her, but in reality she's closing herself off to prevent any further hurt. Piper is loud and brash, but she's more shut down emotionally than she cares to admit. The story shows that pushing everyone away isn't the answer, nor is putting on a brave face and pretending all is OK. The balance between protecting your feelings and reaching out for help is important. As Ava works through group therapy, she writes poetry that breaks up the narrative and gives the reader insight into her emotional healing journey. The social drama at her high school is a cliché at times and some of the other students are stereotypes, but that part of the plot offers a look at the complicated emotions of people trying to figure how to support and deal with survivors. In general, Stewart does a good job of showing how one person's life-changing trauma has a ripple effect and can change the lives of those around them.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how the aftermath of traumatic experiences is depicted in Scars Like Wings. Do the ways Ava and Piper behave seem realistic to you? Did the story give you insight into how hard life can be for people who have experienced that kind of loss and those types of permanent injuries?
How important do you feel good friendships are? Should friends put up with any kind of behavior out of love, or do they need to call out their friends unacceptable behavior?
How do you react when you encounter people who look different due to illness or injuries? Did Ava's story help you understand how your reaction can affect those people?
Book Details
- Author: Erin Stewart
- Genre: Coming of Age
- Topics: Friendship , Great Boy Role Models , Great Girl Role Models , High School
- Book type: Fiction
- Publication date: October 1, 2019
- Number of pages: 384
- Available on: Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
- Last updated: October 22, 2019
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