Sun Signs

by Shelley Hrdlitschka

Overview

Unable to attend school while she battles cancer, fifteen-year-old Kaleigh Wyse tries to complete her classes online

Developing a science project on astrology, Kaleigh enlists other online learners as study participants. What starts as a collaborative and supportive project based on the scientific method, slowly becomes unwieldy and then flawed when it is apparent that all the project participants are hiding vital clues about their identities. As Kaleigh struggles with the effects of chemotherapy and radiation, she is forced to examine the assumptions she has made about others and the manner in which she presents herself to the world. Sun Signs is a compelling story that examines the danger of blind faith in an electronic age and the ease with which our identities, in the absence of traditional clues, can shift and change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781554695447
Publisher:	Orca Book Publishers
Publication date:	04/01/2005
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	791 KB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Shelley Hrdlitschka has written many novels for teens, including Sister Wife, which was nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award. She lives in North Vancouver, British Columbia, where she hikes, snowshoes and hangs out with grizzly bears at the Grouse Mountain Refuge for Endangered Wildlife.

Read an Excerpt

My real life friends are gone. My online friends are just a bunch of liars. For a while I used you and your horoscopes to give me hope, but now I realize how stupid I was. Mr. Selenski tried to warn me, but I wasn't listening. I guess I didn't want to hear.

I can't believe I've been writing to you like this. You must have had a good laugh. And here I am doing it again.

You won't be hearing from me anymore.

Editorial Reviews

This accessible epistolary (e-mail) novel chronicles a project for a long-distance learning class. Homebound with cancer, 15-year-old Kaleigh begins a science report about astrology. Three "distant study buddies" whom she's never met agree to be her Leo subjects and report whether their horoscope from Kaleigh's favorite Web site is accurate each day. Only one tells Kaleigh the complete truth about personal details and horoscope; in turn, she doesn't mention her cancer. Isolation and the unreliability of online communication are Hrdlitschka's blatant themes, but other themes subtly join in. Kaleigh's enthusiasm wanes in the face of exhaustion from radiation treatment. Because her actual prognosis doesn't change, this addresses not only the effects of a life-threatening illness but also the effects of simply feeling sick. E-mails to her teacher and letters to her (immortal) Gemini twin are honest and eventually the other relationships are hashed out. The AOL-speak and a few ending details ring false, but Kaleigh's emotionally genuine all the way. (Fiction. YA)

Kirkus Reviews