It’s 1975, and Barb calls Jeff to dump him on behalf of her friend Viv, Jeff’s former girlfriend. From the phone call, Barb and Jeff begin a friendship of sorts. On the telephone, Barb will speak with Jeff, if only to mock him as a junior-high philanderer. Jeff, meanwhile, tries to get Barb to speak truthfully and seriously, which she refuses to do. But as their conversations continue, it becomes clear that both are lying to each other constantly. With a story told entirely in dialogue spoken by two characters who can’t be trusted to speak an honest word, the book offers a fascinating puzzle: What truth can be learned when everything spoken is suspect? In conversations laden with mid-’70s pop-culture references, from Welcome Back, Kotter to Watergate, these two flawed and interesting characters develop a wary friendship as they fumble toward a kind of truth. Compelling. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2055-1
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2007
For a girl who is—by most standards—not perceived to be extraordinary, it is not easy living with a family of beautiful people. Jennifer Thayer both envies and resents her gourmet restaurateur/salad-dressing entrepreneur father, her industrial- psychologist mother who seems to care more about her work than about her younger daughter, and especially older sister Cass: lovely, talented, brainy, and preparing for marriage. Desperate for attention, Jennifer fakes an attempted rape, and at first, it works; for once in her life she is at center stage. Soon, however, the detective on the case figures out that something in the girl’s story isn’t right, and suspects that Jennifer’s mother has been abusing her. Caught up in the net of lies, Jennifer has to decide whether or not she can live with a growing sense of shame and guilt. Once again, Cadnum (Heat, 1998, etc.) has dissected the mind of one of society’s troubled young people, who has everything on the surface but is desperately trying to fill an unnamed emptiness. Deep, dark, and moving, this is a model tale of adolescent uneasiness set amid the roiling emotions of modern life. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-88377-8
Page Count: 167
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
Despite an obvious agenda, this probing study of an eighth grader’s battle with terror and frustration will hit readers close to home. The traumatized victim of a group grope at a New York swimming pool, Gina has moved with her mother to Santa Barbara, hoping to fit unobtrusively into a new school, a new life. It’s not to be: not only does word of the assault get out (and, as usual, “assault” is immediately accepted as a euphemism for “rape”), it combines with her unusually early physical development to make her a target of knowing looks and invidious rumors. Feeling powerless to set the record straight, Gina attempts to wait the gossip out. Neufeld (Gaps in Stone Walls, 1996, etc.) switches between Gina’s struggle to pin down why boys misread her so completely, and the schemes of a trio of trash-talking classmates to rape her; while the frequently shifting points of view make it hard to keep characters straight, the author puts words in their mouths and thoughts in their heads that will make many readers nod—or squirm—in recognition. In the end, one boy makes the attempt alone, Gina fights him off, and when he swaggers into school claiming to have scored, she launches a devastating counterattack by standing up in class and describing what happened in precise detail. The story may be issue-heavy, but everyone displays conflicting emotions, and both good judgment and bad. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7894-2624-2
Page Count: 164
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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