Wednesday, March 28, 2012

New review in SLJ

I don't know why I get so excited when I see my reviews posted in School Library Journal, but I do!  I mean, the whole point of writing them is to see them published, right??  Yet still, every time I run across one in the print version of the magazine, I get a little heart flutter of excitement!  Sort of a Sally Field's reaction--"they really liked it!"

And the latest review published in the Journal was actually a pretty negative.  I wasn't anticipating publication of this one at all.  The book was good but really, in my humble opinion, more appropriate for older, mature readers.  But hey, my words are in print and I'm excited for that!

I may have posted this one before, but just in case I didn't......here it is again....straight from SLJ.


Pieces Of Us
GELBWASSER, Margie. Pieces Of Us. Flux. ISBN 9780738721644. Gr 10 Up. Magazine Section: Grades 5-up
 
 
Gr 10 Up—For a few weeks every summer, Julie, Katie, Alex, and Kyle are free of the demands of school and their lives back home when they meet at their grandparents' homes in the Catskills. But this year, events at home begin to interfere with their peaceful lives in the mountains. Alex is angry at his father for abandoning the family and his mother for ignoring him and Kyle. He acts out by having meaningless sex with a succession of girls and leaving them behind. Kyle stays quietly out of sight as much as he can. Katie is a popular cheerleader whose mother dotes on her while her sister, Julie, can do nothing right. But when a violent date rape is caught on tape and goes viral throughout the school, the grief and humiliation is more than Katie can handle. And when Alex finds out about the incident, his anger boils over into his relationship with her, and their idyllic summers are over. This bitterly dark, depressing drama has multiple interlocking story lines that all end unhappily, and the characters, especially Alex, don't change much by the end of the book. The narrative alternates among the four teens, which gives interesting perspectives to the story, but can be confusing. The plotline of too much alcohol mixed into a party atmosphere results in a great cautionary tale but the extremely descriptive sexual violence and repetitious use of raw language make this one suitable for only the most mature readers.—Diana Pierce, Leander High School, TX
School Library Journal, March 1, 2012

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