...OR NOT?

Cassie Sullivan is a precocious, spoiled 14-year-old who feels lonely and without hope a year after 9/11. Over the summer, her interest in nature and Tolkien, rather than shopping, causes her friends to dissociate from her. She feels depressed and frustrated by the lack of compassion or political involvement from her fellow students. After she refuses to sing “I’m Proud to Be an American” at the school assembly for the first anniversary of 9/11, her classmates harass her, nicknaming her “Osama O’Sullivan” or “Bin Laden’s ho.” The book is divided into 11 parts with Cassie carefully recording her thoughts, frustrations and political opinions over the course of two months in her diary. When her behavior causes her boyfriend to be sent to a different school, Cassie goes into a downward spiral and wonders if life is worth living. Those looking for light reading will instead discover a young woman who shuns the digital age, preferring vinyl records to CDs, and who is looking for some meaning in a world she suddenly finds unstable. (Fiction. 12-15)