Release Date: February 1, 2009
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Genre: Young Adult
Source: Paperbook, PaperbackSwap
Buy the Book: Amazon
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Goodreads.com: When she is caught in the backseat of a car with her older brother's best friend--Deanna Lambert's teenage life is changed forever. Struggling to overcome the lasting repercussions and the stifling role of "school slut," she longs to escape a life defined by her past. With subtle grace, complicated wisdom and striking emotion, Story of a Girl reminds us of our human capacity for resilience, epiphany and redemption.
My Review:
I don't really remember when I added this book to my TBR list, but every so often, I'll attempt to match my TBR list up with PaperBackSwap to see if I can get any of these books for free! :-)
Have you ever done something that you immediately regret? Something you aren't exactly proud of? There are time when we do things that no one else knows about, and we can kind of keep them to ourselves, dealing with the emotions internally. I think that so many times people do things they aren't exactly proud of in order to fit in, in order to be liked.
For Deanna, her "mistake" was caught by her father, who caught her and Tommy, her brother's drug addict friend, having sex. She was 13 and he was 17. Not only did her dad catch them, but Tommy spread the story all over school. While there was only ever this boy, everyone she encountered at school believed her to be a "slut." Deanna has an older brother who lives in the house with her with his girlfriend and baby. Her best friends, Jason and Lee, are dating. And to get away from it all, she gets a job at a local pizza place, where Tommy happens to work.
I loved this book. I really did. This book broke my heart on so many levels. It wasn't one of those books that instantly destroy your emotions, but my heart broke every single time that Deanna struggled with her relationship with her father, her friends Jason and Lee, and her own feelings towards the situation at hand. I pulled for Deanna. I wanted her to get past her own self image issues, her own feelings of disgust within herself, and rebuild the relationships she felt were destroyed by her choices.
In the end, I think Sara Zarr did an amazing job of writing and developing Deanna as a character. Personally, I wanted to see a bit of the relationships developed at the end with Jason and Lee, because I wanted to know what was said and how that one was repaired. But, I read this book in about 2 hours because I simply couldn't put it down. This was the first book I had ever read by Sara Zarr, and I have already added Sweethearts, How to Save a Life, and Once Was Lost to my TBR list.
I don't really remember when I added this book to my TBR list, but every so often, I'll attempt to match my TBR list up with PaperBackSwap to see if I can get any of these books for free! :-)
Have you ever done something that you immediately regret? Something you aren't exactly proud of? There are time when we do things that no one else knows about, and we can kind of keep them to ourselves, dealing with the emotions internally. I think that so many times people do things they aren't exactly proud of in order to fit in, in order to be liked.
For Deanna, her "mistake" was caught by her father, who caught her and Tommy, her brother's drug addict friend, having sex. She was 13 and he was 17. Not only did her dad catch them, but Tommy spread the story all over school. While there was only ever this boy, everyone she encountered at school believed her to be a "slut." Deanna has an older brother who lives in the house with her with his girlfriend and baby. Her best friends, Jason and Lee, are dating. And to get away from it all, she gets a job at a local pizza place, where Tommy happens to work.
I loved this book. I really did. This book broke my heart on so many levels. It wasn't one of those books that instantly destroy your emotions, but my heart broke every single time that Deanna struggled with her relationship with her father, her friends Jason and Lee, and her own feelings towards the situation at hand. I pulled for Deanna. I wanted her to get past her own self image issues, her own feelings of disgust within herself, and rebuild the relationships she felt were destroyed by her choices.
In the end, I think Sara Zarr did an amazing job of writing and developing Deanna as a character. Personally, I wanted to see a bit of the relationships developed at the end with Jason and Lee, because I wanted to know what was said and how that one was repaired. But, I read this book in about 2 hours because I simply couldn't put it down. This was the first book I had ever read by Sara Zarr, and I have already added Sweethearts, How to Save a Life, and Once Was Lost to my TBR list.
