Book reviews of YA lit and more

As a middle school librarian and hopeful reader of Missouri's high school award books (Gateway nominees), I am reading and reviewing as many young adult and middle grade novels as I can while working on my own writing for this age group.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Where the Truth Lies- Jessica Warman

I have now read all three Jessica Warman books, and I really enjoyed them all.  I especially thought it was clever how she tied a character from Breathless loosely to this book.  Emily Meckler seems to have the perfect life.  She lives and attends Stonybrook, an upscale boarding school in Conneticut where her father is the headmaster.  She has a great group of friends that live together in a suite in a small dorm, and though she doesn't have quite the money or brains of all the students, she fits in and has a good time.  Enter into the picture Del Sugar.  He has bounced around the foster care system and now has been adopted by parents who are enrolling him Stonybrook.  He is incredibly smart, yet doesn't play by anyone's rules.  When he and Emily fall in love nothing but trouble can follow.  Despite her parents and friends' warnings, Jessica lets herself get involved with Del and it leads where she never thought she would go.  Del is the catalyst for her discovering more about herself than she ever wanted to know and forces her to face up to the nightmares she has been struggling with since she was a little girl.  This book, like Warman's others, have some twists that although you are kind of prepared for are still enjoyable.  Her portrait of boarding school life is very accurate, although because of that this book is much better suited to a high school collection instead of middle school.

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