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THE SECRET OF ME by Meg Kearney Kirkus Star

THE SECRET OF ME

by Meg Kearney

Pub Date: Nov. 29th, 2005
ISBN: 0-89255-322-7

A sincere, at times poignant, novel-in-verse reads like a memoir and tells the story of a teenager who wishes to explore her identity as an adopted child. Lizzie (age 14) expresses her deepest and most personal thoughts about being adopted with her three best friends. But she longs to share her secret identity with her new boyfriend and to probe openly her biological background, even though her siblings (also adopted) view doing so as an act of disloyalty to their devoted adoptive parents. Kearney exploits poetry and its variety of forms uniquely to access and express Lizzie’s innermost hopes and desires and how they affect the choices she makes. A real balance of personal exploration as an adoptee and new teenage emotions creates a powerful blend in a warm character ready to connect and sustain that bond to readers. Not only will adolescents feel expertly sensitized to issues of adoption, they will get a good dose of real poetry with unique and inspiring language so often sacrificed for story in this genre. Substantive backmatter (afterword, guide to the poetics, reprints of poems Lizzie loves, recommended links and bibliography) makes this a first-rate offering. (Fiction. 12+)