Sexual Abuse Books - Page 4

33 Snowfish

Adam Rapp

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Unreadable. 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 10 people found this review helpful.

Adam Rapp, 33 Snowfish (Candlewick, 2003)

There should be a warning label on novels written in dialogue, or at the very least a glossary a la A Clockwork Orange at the back. While Rapp's protagonists here speak in somewhat recognizable English, a good deal of what they say simply makes no sense, and the slang they're using is never explained. This leads very quickly to an unreadable book.

In it three teens-- Boobie, Curl, and Custis-- are on a trip. Where? They don't know. They plan to raise some money by selling Boobie's infant brother, whom they've kidnapped and taken with them.

The seeds of something that could have been brilliant. For all the book's unreadability, the characters are well-drawn and mostly distinct, with appealing quirks and depths of amorality rarely found in adult novels, much less stuff penned for the teen set. I'm fond (too much so, perhaps) of depravity for the sake of depravity, but Rapp has written the book so that the reader is forced to sift through acres of slang terms to get to the point, which obviously dilutes the very point he's trying to make (not to mention the imagery associated with it); a hard read for all the wrong reasons. Not worth your time. (zero)

Editorial Review:

"Adam Rapp's brilliant and haunting story will break your heart. But then his words will mend it. . . . Absolutely unforgettable." - Michael Cart

On the run in a stolen car with a kidnapped baby in tow, Custis, Curl, and Boobie are three young people with deeply troubled pasts and bleak futures. As they struggle to find a new life for themselves, it becomes painfully clear that none of them will ever be able to leave the past behind. Yet for one, redemption is waiting in the unlikeliest of places.

With the raw language of the street and lyrical, stream-of-consciousness prose, Adam Rapp hurtles the reader into a world of lost children, a world that is not for the faint of heart. Gripping, disturbing, and starkly illuminating, his hypnotic narration captures the voices of two damaged souls - a third speaks only through drawings - to tell a story of alienation, deprivation, and ultimately, the saving power of compassion.

Boy O'Boy

Brian Doyle

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Editorial Review:

Martin O'Boy's life is not easy. His beloved grandmother has just died, his pregnant mother and father fight all the time, and his twin, Phil, is completely incapacitated. And yet, for Martin, life in Ottawa's Lowertown is not all bad: he has his best friend Billy Batson, the movies, his one-eared cat Cheap, and then there's Buz, his glamorous next-door neighbor, who's off at the war.

As the war comes to an end with the bombing of Hiroshima, Ottawa is plunged into a state of turmoil — returning soldiers, parties, fights, and drunks fill the streets. Meanwhile, turmoil of another kind is brewing closer to home: Martin and Billy joined the church choir to earn some money, and the organist, Mr. T. D. S. George, is very interested in Martin. As the reader knows, though Martin doesn't, this interest is a very dangerous thing. But Martin has a pure soul, Billy's friendship, his cat's affection, Buz's imminent return, and his grandmother's love — all of which help him to deliver justice to Mr. George and heal himself and others.

Billie Standish Was Here

Nancy Crocker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Loved it! Tears and all! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Having grown up in a time and place not so far from Billie Standish, I can say with some authority that Crocker has captured an American voice with an authenticity that makes the 1960's smack you in the face all over again. My daughter loved it. I loved it. It's not just a coming-of-age novel. It's a book about finding your way through life and the constant struggle to love and be loved; themes that last a lifetime. It may be considered a young adult novel but it had one of the most cynical adults I know (me) by the throat, pulling me along every step of the way. Young people may see Billie's life through one prism. Adults may see it through another. It's the kind of child/adult read that could lead to "teachable moments", although I won't tell my daughter that.

Editorial Review:

CAN ONE UNLIKELY FRIENDSHIP SAVE A LIFE?

Billie Standish has pretty much no one. Her parents are too caught up in their own lives, and the only two girls in town her age want nothing to do with her. When it looks like a nearby levee might break, and Billie's elderly neighbor, Miss Lydia, is the only other person besides her family to stick around, a friendship is born out of circumstance. What happens during that time, in that empty town, is a tragedy that Billie can't bear alone. Can the love of one woman nearing the end of her life save the life of a young woman just at the beginning of living hers?

Chasing Tail Lights

Patrick Jones

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Chasing Tail Lights 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Christy is a senior in high school and can't wait to get out of Flint, Michigan. She probably never will leave, but hearing her father always talk about "chasing tail lights" until they take you where you want to be, gives her the hope she needs to get through the mess that is her life.

In fifth grade, Christy's father died and life has never been the same. Her mother works hard and drinks hard, but doesn't have a kind word for Christy. Christy's half-brother, Ryan, gets their mother's love even though he deserves it the least. Bree, Christy's little niece, has become her responsibility. She cooks, cleans, and does laundry while she keeps an eye on Bree and swears to keep her safe.

School could offer Christy a way to escape Flint, but with so-so grades and sleepless nights that cause her to be late to class or unable to keep her eyes open, things look less than promising for Christy's future. When Christy demonstrates her ability to run, English teacher Ms. Chapman urges her to join the track team. She also supplies Christy with an unending supply of books to read, each one with a message designed to help the young girl cope with her troubling world. But even encouragement from Ms. Chapman and her best friend, Anne, can't get Christy to accept and admit what is happening on the dark side of her life.

CHASING TAIL LIGHTS exposes the sickening underbelly of sexual abuse. Christy, an innocent victim of the ugly crime, fights with determination to better her life and protect those around her. Readers will feel her pain and cheer her accomplishments as she learns to accept her situation and make a plea for help. Patrick Jones, author of Things Change and Nailed, has outdone himself with this one.

Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

Editorial Review:

Break free.

Before he died, Christy’s daddy used to say that when you feel lost, follow the tail lights of the truck in front of you, and they’ll get you somewhere safe. Christy keeps chasing those tail lights, but somehow, she’s always still lost in Flint, Michigan. Like most teens in Flint, she’s dying to leave this dying city. But she’s got a secret that she’s never told anyone, and it’s keeping her chained like a dog to her dead-end life. And she’ll never be able to make a fresh start until she’s able to reveal that horrible truth and bring herself back into the light.

Patrick Jones revisits his hometown of Flint, Michigan, and the darkness that has overtaken this impoverished city in a novel that reveals the chilling reality of growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in America today.

First Time (Orca Soundings)

Meg Tilly

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Editorial Review:

Haley and Lynn are best friends. When Lynn meets Chad, a player several years older, Haley feels left out. She tries to be happy for her friend, but when her mother's new boyfriend starts making unwanted advances, Haley finds she has no one to tell. Not wanting to upset her mother's happiness and finding that Lynn is drifting away, Haley has to face her tormentor alone and face up to some very hard truths.

Lena

Jacqueline Woodson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A must read for all who read I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

In Lena, Jacqueline Woodson continues the story of Lena and Dion Bright, the two sisters who leave Chauncey, Ohio, to escape the clutches of their abusive father in I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This. Woodson allows the reader to travel with Lena and Dion through Ohio and Kentucky in an effort to find a place called home. Lena and Dion hitch hiking leads to them meeting several people, the final person being an African-American woman "Miz Lily," who is perceptive enough to realize that the girls are homeless. This is a must read for all who read Woodson's I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This.

Editorial Review:

At the end of I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This, Lena and her younger sister, Dion, set off on their own, desperate to escape their abusive father. Disguised as boys, they hitchhike along, traveling in search of their mother’s relatives. They don’t know what they will find, or who they can trust along the way, but they do know that they can’t afford to make even one single mistake. Dramatic and moving, this is a heart-wrenching story of two young girls in search of a place to call home.

Little Chicago

Adam Rapp

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Little Chicago opens in the office of Children’s Services, where 11-year-old Blacky Brown is being interviewed by a social worker trying to determine what has happened to him. His emotions are blocked at first, but then he reveals that he has been sexually abused by his mother’s boyfriend, and is released into his mother’s custody. Thus begins an alternately harrowing and hopeful story of a brave boy’s attempts to come to grips with a grim reality. Blacky is helped at first by a classmate, Mary Jane, who has also been ostracized, and then by the gun that he buys easily from his sister’s boyfriend. Little Chicago is an unblinking look at the world of a child who has been neglected and abused. It portrays head-on the indifference and hostility of classmates, teachers, and even Blacky’s mother, once these people learn his “secret.” Like Sura in The Buffalo Tree and Whensday in The Copper Elephant, Blacky is one of Adam Rapp’s mesmerizing voices, more so because it is a voice so rarely heard.

Por Favor Di!: Un cuento para ninos sobre el abuso sexual (Spanish Edition)

Jessie

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Editorial Review:

Written and illustrated by a young girl who was sexually molested by a family member, this dramatic, true story helps children learn about sexual abuse and what they can do if it is happening to them.

Friction (Richard Jackson Books (Simon Pulse))

E. R. Frank

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Most well-known for her devastatingly poignant teen tales of urban desperation and redemption, renowned young adult author E. R. Frank switches gears and narrows her focus to the pivotal events of one 8th grade classroom. The progressive petri dish of Forest Alternative’s middle school is stirred the wrong way when sophisticated, tongue-ringed Stacy makes the scene. Almost immediately, Stacy takes advantage of the school’s relaxed and experimental atmosphere to start a little excitement. For reasons known only to herself, she begins to insinuate that Simon, the 8th grade‘s idealistic, good-looking young teacher, is in love with Alex, Friction’s mild mannered first person narrator. Embarrassed and infuriated, Alex tries to squelch the gossip, but only manages to make herself look more guilty to her classmates. When she finally confronts Stacy, Alex is horrified when Stacy tearfully admits that the reason she’s been spreading the rumors is to draw attention away from the fact that Simon is actually molesting her. Confused and half caught up in Stacy’s stories herself, Alex makes the mistake of trusting her shifting feelings instead of what she knows to be true, irreparably harming her admired teacher in the process. Friction is a provocative, deadly accurate portrayal of puberty, in all its manipulative, perplexing, unmanageable glory. Alex’s quest to discover the definition of truth is a journey every teenager makes, and teen readers of Friction will take great comfort in the fact that a trusted author, who clearly hasn’t forgotten adolescence herself, is helping to chart the path. (Ages 12 to 15) --Jennifer Hubert

Fragments

Jeffry W. Johnston

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Courtesy of Teens Read Too 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

FRAGMENTS begins with all of the things a good book should: tension, problems, and many questions. Chase is a junior at a new school, recently discharged from a long hospital stay after a car accident, and struggles with the loss of his memory. His older brother sneaks into the house to see him, but Chase is told to keep his visit a secret. And that's all in the first four pages!

Readers immediately care for Chase and want him to be able to find some peace. As he deals with all of the issues and struggles to grab hold of fragments of memories as they pop into his head, you, too, want to know what happened the night of the car accident. Especially when you find out that he is suffering from "survivor guilt." You hope that the accident wasn't Chase's fault--and feel the need to know the truth.

While Chase searches his memories for bits of information, he is continually taken back to another memory of his brother when they were younger. Chase can't remember the whole situation, but it seems to haunt him, too. It's almost as though the memory of his brother will help to lead him to remembering the events of the accident. However, Chase later realizes that he has kept his own secrets which are worse than the events of the night of the accident . Can Chase handle knowing all of the truths he has tucked away inside his mind?

FRAGMENTS is a fast-paced book with continual tension and unending surprises. This is the first novel of Jeffry W. Johnston, but he is bound to become a favorite young adult author.

Reviewed by: Dianna Geers

Editorial Review:

Ever since the accident, Chase feels shattered. He can't remember that night, and everyone's treating him like a broken freak. He just wants things to go back to normal. So when he starts getting flashes of memory, he's relieved. He's sure once he remembers everything, he can put the crash behind him and start over.

But when the flashes reveal another memory, Chase starts to panic. He's desperate to leave his ugly past behind. But if he wants to put the pieces together once and for all, he must face the truth about who he is . . . and what he has done.