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Monday, October 13, 2014

Next weekend -- and a review!

It's Monday -- time to start thinking about next weekend! Will you come hang with me, hear me read from my new book UNFRIENDED*, and I could sign a copy for you? Here's where I'll be, when:


Saturday Oct 18 4 PM The Hickory Stick Bookstore in Washington, CT

Sunday Oct 19 2:30 PM Bank Street Bookstore NYC (112th and Bway)

Lemme know if you can come!


* UNFRIENDED just got a STARRED review from Bulletin! Here it is:
R* Gr. 5-8
After two years of rejection, Truly is finally summoned by her ex-best friend Natasha to the eighth-grade Popular Table in the lunchroom, little knowing the disaster dominoes that will consequently topple. In changing groups, Truly leaves behind smart, arrogant, and determinedly offbeat Hazel, who’s none too thrilled at being jettisoned in favor of girls she considers beneath her; additionally, angry, insecure Natasha grows convinced that Truly is conspiring to nudge Natasha out of the group, and the actions of Hazel and Natasha result in a growing anti-Truly storm that rages over social media and text messages. Those are only a few of the strands of this fascinatingly intricate, poignantly authentic look at middle-school dynam- ics and their amplification through technology. Narration alternates between six eighth-graders: Truly, Hazel, and Natasha, plus the popular group’s low-key leader, Brooke; Brooke’s long-term friend who’s starting to become a romantic possibility, Clay; and the boy who likes Truly, Jack. The result hearkens back to Vail’s wonderful The Friendship Ring series in its opportunity to see how various characters delight, suffer, and rationalize, complicating the portrayals: sweet Truly really does dump Hazel without a backward glance; Hazel repents her pot-stirring account hacking and finds herself liking Brooke; Natasha is so influenced by her bitter and puni- tive mother that it’s a miracle she manages to be functional. The author rises to the difficult technical challenge of keeping all these chaotic plot elements in clear and compelling play, and she not only plausibly pulls her characters out of their combined downward spiral but manages to give everybody some grace and hope. This will be an irresistible starter to a discussion of ethics and values, and readers will appreciate both the cautionary tale and the message of survival’s possibility. DS

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