Publishers Weekly
Weightier than its title suggests, this well-executed first novel introduces three A-list high school seniors whose perfect lives are in disarray after a drunk-driving accident the previous spring, “After the first cracks that split into canyons between us, sending me spinning across the ocean, Nikki down the Crazy Diet Rabbit Hole, and Lacey into the Land of Crippled Martyrdom.” Narrator Paige is “exiled” to Paris to work as an au pair while her image-conscious mother does damage control. Upon Paige’s return, her friends are cold, distant, and resentful that she was able to escape for the summer. Although the girls put on a front of normalcy once school begins, underlying tensions threaten to undermine their relationship. With the help of a new writing teacher, Paige embarks on a painful but enlightening journey of self-awareness. The conflicts Paige faces and the changes she undergoes are powerfully evoked. Backes addresses guilt, deceit, homophobia, loyalty, and the burden of keeping up appearances in a brutally believable high school setting as Paige recognizes the weaknesses of loved ones and her own imperfections. Ages 14–up. Agent: Becca Stumpf, Prospect Agency. (May)
From the Publisher
A well-executed first novel... Backes addresses guilt, deceit, homophobia, loyalty, and the burden of keeping up appearances in a brutally believable high school setting as Paige recognizes the weaknesses of loved ones and her own imperfections.
—Publishers Weekly
In this debut novel, Backes takes Dead Poets Society and brings it into the age of Mean Girls. Her writing style is witty while still being relatable, and the themes of acceptance and identity will ring true to teens... Backes re-creates a world that most teens already live in, with the overarching message that anyone can become more than what others perceive them to be.
—School Library Journal
This intelligent novel highlights the consequences of high school peer pressure, jealousy, and prejudice. The setting will be familiar to readers, most of whom have seen athletes and wealthy party girls perch at the top of the social hierarchy while everyone else revolves around the periphery... This novel demonstrates that even popular kids have challenges in high school. It reads smoothly without the weight of melodrama, in spite of the serious storyline. Paige is a likeable, convincing protagonist who engenders sympathy.
—VOYA
Backes’ smart debut hits high-schoolers with relevant issues... Paige’s first-person narration is powerful, and readers will identify with her evolution.
—Booklist Online
School Library Journal - Audio
Gr 8 Up—Three popular girls—Paige, Lacey and Nikki—are involved in an accident at the end of their junior year of high school as a result of drunk driving. Sent away for the summer to be an au pair in Paris by her image-conscious mother, Paige returns to her senior year only to find her friends and boyfriend acting strangely. The once tight threesome is divided by Nikki's possible anorexia and promiscuity, injured Lacey's air of martyrdom, and Paige's lack of sympathy. Their goal of being homecoming princesses begins to look less likely. When Paige takes a creative writing class with a charismatic teacher who encourages students to be true to themselves and meets some uncool teens, her character develops and she slowly learns to be kinder and less of a snob. There are a lot of pertinent themes in Backes's novel (Candlewick, 2012): peer pressure, problematic family relationships, casual cruelty of teens, and homophobia. Not all are satisfactorily dealt with, but listeners will be interested to track Paige's growth. Shelby Lewis's spot-on narration perfectly reflects the teenage tone, drawing listeners in. She makes some characters even more likeable than they were on the page, and draws our attention to the arrogance of others. Ultimately, Paige reveals who was behind the wheel on that fateful night, and the girls do their best to deal with the situation. A good choice for young adult collections.—B. Allison Gray, Goleta Library, CA
Kirkus Reviews
In the wake of a drunk-driving accident, a girl destined to be homecoming queen finds herself wondering who she really is. Paige was hustled off to France for the summer by her parents to get over the shame. When she gets back to school in the fall, it's hard to fall back into sync with her best friends, also in the accident. Worse, her boyfriend, though he swears he still loves her and seems to like making out with her, is spending an awful lot of time with one of them. Paige is surprised to find that the best class of the day is creative writing, where she makes friends with a couple of kids on the fringe. Through writing exercises, she revisits the night of the accident and interrogates herself--and she doesn't always like what she learns. Paige's journey out of the Mean Girls IT group won't shock readers, but it unfolds with pleasingly realistic hesitations, as does her relationship with the new, uncool boy. Backes has more trouble with her secondary characters; while some feel very real, others never depart from stereotype. Subplots involving homophobic attacks on the writing teacher, Paige's difficult relationship with her social-climbing mother and an anti–drunk-driving campaign weave in and out with sometimes-faltering success, particularly the last. But the writing is fluid, Paige is a likably unreliable narrator and the high-school setting is believably sordid. A mostly solid, if a little too long, high-school drama. (Fiction. 14 & up)
