|
|
Books For Youth - Fiction - General Fiction
|  |  | 
Jumped.
Williams-Garcia, Rita (author).
Feb. 2009. 176p. HarperTeen, hardcover, $16.99 (9780060760915); library edition, $17.89 (9780060760922). Grades 9-12.
REVIEW.
First published February 1, 2009 (Booklist).
Leticia, a gossipy high-school student, knows that “Girl fights are ugly. Girl fights are personal.” She says this after overhearing that Dominique, the tough-as-nails basketball player, is planning to beat up pink-clad fashion-plate Trina at 2:45. The infraction was minor—the oblivious Trina cut off Dominique in the hallway—but for Dominique it was the last of a series of insults, the worst of which was being benched by Coach for failing to improve her grades. Bouncing between the three first-person accounts within the span of a single school day, Williams-Garcia makes the drama feel not only immediate but suffocatingly tense, as each tick of the clock speeds the three girls toward collision. Dominique’s anger and frustration is tangible; Leticia’s hemming over whether or not to get involved feels frighteningly authentic; and only Trina’s relentless snobbery seems a bit simplified. Most impressive is how the use of voice allows readers to fully experience the complicated politics of high school; you can sense the thousand mini-dramas percolating within each crowded classroom. Along the way, the characters’ disregard of such high-school stalwarts as A Separate Peace and Of Mice and Men subtly prepares the reader for the messy and gut-wrenching conclusion.— Daniel Kraus
| |
|
| Click here to find more books by this author |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|