Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson
ISBN: 0670059749
Viking Juvenile, New York, 2005
224 pages
Teaser: When the money for prom is stolen by a teacher, students scramble to find a way to have their prom.
Summary: Ashley may not care about the prom, but she is in the minority. When a teacher steals the money that was going to pay for prom, she steps up to help her friends make sure the prom will still happen. This story is set in an inner city high school, things like sex, drugs, drinking, and even Ashley's plan to move in with her boyfriend after graduation, are just part of life. During the course of the story Ashley and other teens work to make prom happen, and eventually succeed. Funny and fun to read, this is an interesting take on a not quite Cinderella story.
Evaluation: I liked this book. The tone felt real, like a teen from a huge family, with a steady if not stellar boyfriend, and a distinct lack of respect for authority was telling the tale. Ashley seems like the stereotypical disinterested teen with no real future. She works at a pizza place where she wears a rat costume, has a dropout boyfriend, and has no real plans for the future other than moving out of her crowded home to live with her boyfriend. By the end of the book she has moved beyond the apathetic rut she was in, dumped her loser boyfriend, and is attending a community college. I don't have any major complaints about this book. Some secondary characters were a little underdeveloped, but honestly, some people are a little underdeveloped, so I didn't find myself too bothered by the shallower characters. It was a quick and easy read, but it delivered laughs and its message well. Despite the gritty details, this book was very funny overall, and ended on a hopeful but realistic note.
Challenge issues and age recommendation: Sex, drugs, and underage alcohol consumption are all talked about with a kind of blunt nonchalance in this book. Despite this, nothing was too shocking or graphic, so I would recommend this book for ages 12 and up.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment