Librarina: Great books for Tweens & Teens

TEEN

I am going to a librarian’s conference soon at which I will be able to meet Alex Flinn, so I figured I should probably [finally] get around to reading this book. Everyone always talked about how amazing this book was, and I just had to take their word for it… Well, no longer!

Nick starts off not understanding why it’s such a big deal that he hit his girlfriend Caitlin. Why did she have to go and get a restraining order? Why did his best friends suddenly stop talking to him? But what starts off as a whiny, court-mandated journal for an anger management class soon becomes something more. Nick starts to see how the other guys in his class are too controlling of their girlfriends — and he thinks it’s wrong that some of them go overboard with controlling their girlfriends’ social lives or using physical violence against them. It takes a long time for him to admit to himself that he behaved in a very similar way, but he finally starts to see that the excuses he had been using to justify his behavior were just that… Excuses.

I am fortunate enough that I have never been part of an abusive or controlling relationship, but this is a reality for too many girls and women. I think this book does an amazing job of showing just how difficult it can be for a person to own up to his/her own faults — and I think it is also an excellent way to get people started with thinking about or discussing what is and is not acceptable in a relationship. I just hope that this book makes it into the hands of at least one guy who needs a reality check or one girl who needs the inspiration to stand up for herself. I’m sure that is what Alex Flinn would want.

Happy Reading!

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Audiobook List:
Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
Surrender by Sonya Hartnett
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin
Accidents of Nature by Harriet McBryde Johnson
The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin

Book List:
The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean
Max and the Gatekeeper by James Todd Cochrane
Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
Sweethearts by Sara Zarr (ARC)
Deadline by Chris Crutcher
Being Bee by Catherine Bateson
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr