Helpful Score: 2
A fine book that manages to take an intelligent look at the "current headlines" story about yet another 13 yr. old student being maliciously bullied at school. She weaves deftly through the complex plot, with compassion and pulls it off. One is carried through the heartbreaking dysfunctional families involved, seen through the eyes of a librarian who suffers guilt for her own runaway daughter's alienation. The Librarian is not the sharpest knife in the drawer but maintains her drive to the end, believing that she is only one who can save this teenaged child from destruction. A fascinating subplot is the old manuscript, detailing the long lost autobiography of an Irish immigrant girl, who happens to be the great grandmother of the teenager.
Helpful Score: 1
An interesting and new way to approach cyber bullying. The hot topic was a part of this novel, but not the sole center, which I appreciated. Natalie - a high school freshmen and Kathleen - a career woman who has lost both a daughter and a husband are an unlikely pair, but their relationship in this book was perfectly scripted.
Without any chapters, this book was interesting as it switched focus between the characters with strategic spacing. Because the book switched between characters, the reader was able to get to know each character on their own turf, which made me fall in love with them in their own space. I loved that Kathleen was given the opportunity to help raise another teenager, it was so fitting that she have a second chance. At the same moment, I loved how Natalie was given another maternal figure to lean on until her mother was able to pull it together and re-enter her child's life.
This book showed me once again that it definitely takes a village to raise a child - sometimes parents are inadequate or just not the answer to the problem that a child has, they may just need someone outside of the family to lean on through a difficult time. A great book that both showed the destruction of family, but the reconstruction of a different kind of family.
Without any chapters, this book was interesting as it switched focus between the characters with strategic spacing. Because the book switched between characters, the reader was able to get to know each character on their own turf, which made me fall in love with them in their own space. I loved that Kathleen was given the opportunity to help raise another teenager, it was so fitting that she have a second chance. At the same moment, I loved how Natalie was given another maternal figure to lean on until her mother was able to pull it together and re-enter her child's life.
This book showed me once again that it definitely takes a village to raise a child - sometimes parents are inadequate or just not the answer to the problem that a child has, they may just need someone outside of the family to lean on through a difficult time. A great book that both showed the destruction of family, but the reconstruction of a different kind of family.
