Sammie’s parents decide to give their marriage a “break” – her father moves to California and she and her mom move out of their home in Ithaca to spend the year in New York City. This is a pretty formulaic coming of age story, with not much to make it stand out. She is bitter since she is closest to her father, and her mom hides in her room,unwilling to find a job as an art teacher and incapable of being an adult and parent. While often with young adult books an older reader may question how much is the narrator’s view of being neglected, this is clearly a disturbed woman unwilling to drag herself out of bed or take care of her child. So in this sense, the narrator is very accurate with less teenage family angst. Not a book I would recommend unless you are really interested in this specific type of fiction.

This was my selection for “realistic fiction” in this semesters’ Young Adult Literature class- and surprisingly I loved it! 15 year old Ginny’s best friend goes to Walla Walla for the year, and Ginny doesn’t know what to do. A “chubby” girl who everyone remarks how pretty she would be “if only she could lose twenty pounds,” she feels adrift in a family of “perfect” people. Only she finds out her perfect brother Byron is not so perfect after all. A well written story about self esteem, high school drama, and rape-this is fantastic coming of age story. Ginny comes to realize how important it is to find yourself and be happy about who you are instead of allowing someone else to dictate who you should be.