Jayne Thompson, the protagonist of Susan Colebank's first YA novel, is on top of things: she's valedictorian of her junior class and she's a star on her tennis team. But on top of things isn't always that great. Her mom, a local TV reporter, is more concerned with appearances than reality; her younger sister, a diabetic, is completely irresponsible (and Jayne is pressured and counted upon to cover for her, make up for her, do things for her); her dad, while nice, seems out of touch.
And Jayne never complains out loud. But what she does do, as a knee-jerk reaction, is run a red light.
That one instance results in the death of a young girl, the sister of a "mean girl" at Jayne's school. Jayne suffers terribly for her actions--her grades drop, she isolates herself, she shuts down.
Things change when she is sentenced to a year of community service at Outreach Arizona. Jayne initially seems to be headed down a dangerous path: drinking, a tattoo, a piercing, but all of that is part of Jayne finally finding herself, rather than who others want her to be.
I liked this novel and think that teen girls would relate to it, especially those like Jayne (I was kind of like her) who are under tremendous pressure from a parent to be what the parent wants.
The book would work well in a unit on chances/second chances. Students could also read Looking for JJ and We Were Here, for example, and talk about the juvenile justice system and what seems to be fair/unfair punishments.
No comments:
Post a Comment