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THE PARTY'S OVER by Caroline Cooney

THE PARTY'S OVER

by Caroline Cooney

Pub Date: April 1st, 1991
ISBN: 0-590-42552-8
Publisher: Scholastic

In another thoughtfully off-center effort, Cooney examines the post-graduation fate of the most popular girl in her class. Hallie Revness has used constant involvement in school activities as a substitute for the close family denied her by her parents' absorption in their own interests. At the end of a perfect senior year in small-town Maine, she is totally unprepared for the change that takes place when all her friends, including desperately loved boyfriend Jaz, leave for collegean option she has discarded, knowing she's no student. Having no alternative plan, she spirals deeper into depression until, months later, a job at the local marina gives her directionbut for a future that will separate her from Jaz. While Hallie's lack of any post-high school planning may be difficult to credit, this sensitive picture of a young woman coming to terms with hard truths about adulthood and growing up in the process is well populated with believable characters. An involving (if sometimes leisurely) depiction of what it means to rethink basic values. (Fiction. 12+)