Despite the icky “lots of girls your age go through this little phase” consolation in this book, I think it was realistic, well-written, and fairly good at avoiding the easy answers. I do wonder about the extent of her transformation at the end. Was such a change possible with the weight of the issues she had to deal with?

I found a leetle too much in common with Monica, and was surprised at how easy her redemption seemed to come to her, but overall I felt this was a good read with believable, well-developed characters. Tashjian is an expert when it comes to creating awful, gut-clenching, but super-realistic situations for her teens.