Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr

Read for: YA lit class/leisure
Rating: 4.5

This was a really great book to read right after having read Speak. Story of a Girl is about Deanna Lambert, a girl who has been labeled the school slut. When she was thirteen her dad found her parked in a car with Tommy, her older brother's friend who was seventeen. The events in the book take place three years after that, when Deanna is sixteen.

What I really enjoyed about Deanna's narration was that she was oftentimes bitingly sarcastic and blunt, but then when she is on her own you see the softer side of Deanna and how she has truly been affected by her past. The heart of the story lies within the relationship that Deanna has with her father. After he found her with Tommy, Deanna and Mr. Lambert's relationship has never been the same. He doesn't look her in the eyes anymore, they don't talk, and he almost always refers to Deanna as "you" or "she." He is highly suspicious of all Deanna's activities and interrogates her about everything she does. At one point Deanna overhears her father and mother talking about her, and Mr. Lambert is suspicious that Deanna is going to "get into trouble" by working late nights at her new job.

"See, he talked about me that way even when he thought I couldn't hear. It wasn't just something he did when I was around so that he could make me feel like crap, punish me, or whatever. If I needed proof about what he really thought, here it was" (p. 69).

That is an example of the bitingly blunt combined with the softer side of Deanna. I think that students could really relate to Deanna, especially students who have made a mistake that they regret, but can't seem to get away from the repurcussions of it. I liked reading Story of a Girl in conjunction with Speak because it gave a different perspective on the issue of sex. What I would like to read next is a book that has a male perspective. This book is a lot more explicit than Speak was with regard to the sex and there is also a higher prevalence of swearing, which might give some pause for being recommended in schools, but I still think that students would benefit from reading it.