Sweet 16Kate Brian
Teagan Phillips is obnoxiously rich, obnoxiously fashionable, and, this year, she's obnoxiously turning sixteen. No one's sweet sixteen party will be as glitzy, glamorous, decadent, and, well, obnoxious as Teagan's sweet sixteen party. She might single-handedly take the sweet out of sweet sixteen.
In typical fashion, nothing is quite right for Teagan on the night of her sweet sixteen party. When a slew of unfortunate events unfold at what was supposed to be the sweet sixteen event of the century, she hits rock bottom, literally, by falling down the stairs into the wine cellar. When she comes to, a strange woman is standing over her. What happens next will bring Teagan back in time to when she was a sweet little girl with two parents, before her mother died and her father t hrew himself into his work.
She'll be forced to face the choices she made that led her to be the person she is on her sixteenth birthday. And with the help of her fairy godmother (or whoever the heck the creepy woman in white is), this will be the sweetest of all sixteens.
=========
The Possibility of Fireflies
by Dominique Paul
Ellie, almost 15, and her older sister, Gwen, were always close--until their parents separated and their depressed mother became brutal, detached, and unpredictable. Ellie hides her problems at home from her friends, always trying to steer clear of controversy. Her sister, however, rebels, challenging their mother at every turn--partying, vandalizing, doing drugs--and sometimes taking Ellie along. But Ellie knows Gwen's solution is not for her, and in her strong, distinctive voice--smart and sweet--she agonizes as she struggles to find a way to connect loving memories of her mother with the reality of the volatile parent she knows now. It's a familiar enabling scenario (complete with a "counselor" in the form of a kindly, if sketchily drawn, 20-year-old neighbor), but Paul makes the story her own by investing Ellie with an appealing stubbornness and optimism that allow her to work her way slowly but surely through difficulties to find a safe, right path. Nancy Werlin offers a slightly different take on the difficult subject of abusive mothers in The Rules of Survival (2006).
by Dominique Paul
Ellie, almost 15, and her older sister, Gwen, were always close--until their parents separated and their depressed mother became brutal, detached, and unpredictable. Ellie hides her problems at home from her friends, always trying to steer clear of controversy. Her sister, however, rebels, challenging their mother at every turn--partying, vandalizing, doing drugs--and sometimes taking Ellie along. But Ellie knows Gwen's solution is not for her, and in her strong, distinctive voice--smart and sweet--she agonizes as she struggles to find a way to connect loving memories of her mother with the reality of the volatile parent she knows now. It's a familiar enabling scenario (complete with a "counselor" in the form of a kindly, if sketchily drawn, 20-year-old neighbor), but Paul makes the story her own by investing Ellie with an appealing stubbornness and optimism that allow her to work her way slowly but surely through difficulties to find a safe, right path. Nancy Werlin offers a slightly different take on the difficult subject of abusive mothers in The Rules of Survival (2006).
0 comments:
Post a Comment