by Caela Carter
Summary:
16 year old Evelyn wanted to be the bad girl. She was tired of being the perfect girl her parents wanted her to be, and why should she be when they barely acknowledged her and cheated on each other. But when she finds out she's pregnant, she's suddenly forced to make decisions that she's barely able to. And is forced to rely on a family that she thought had given her up.
Review:
Me, Him, Them and It does a really impressive job of realistically portraying how a smart teen, who gets good grades and does everything else right, ends up a teen mom. The book shows her as she goes through the decision making process, weighing abortion, adoption or raising the child. At times you really don't like Evelyn, she tends to curl into herself and let decisions be forced rather than make them herself, but in that way the book is very realistic. The book will appeal to older teens, but less so for younger teens since the situation is a little harder for them to place themselves in. Older teens will relate to how Evelyn, who does so much right, finds herself making one choice that will define the rest of her life.
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Age Level: 10th Grade
Showing posts with label Abortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abortion. Show all posts
Monday, April 22, 2013
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
How to Save a Life
by Sara Zarr
Summary:
Over the last year, Jill's life has been turned upside down. She is still coping with the unexpected death of her father last year, when her mother decides that the best way to cope with her grief is to adopt a child. But not just any child.
Mandy might be almost 19, but she is not ready to cope with the child she is carrying. In Jill's mother she sees her salvation, a person who can get her away from her hometown in the midwest, away from her mother and terrible home life.
When Mandy arrives at Jill's, both are faced with decisions they didn't want to make. With a situation neither expected. With time, and patience, maybe they can come to understand each other, perhaps things will finally work out for both of them.
Reviews:
Zarr's book is a poignant look at a teenage mother who is faced with the decision of whether or not to give up her baby. Mandy is a character who doesn't know any better. She was raised with a set of morals that Jill, the product of an upper middle class family, can't understand. Mandy comes to live with Jill in the type of house she has only seen in magazines. Both have to learn to understand the other in order to find a situation they can both live with. It's a book with a happy ending, not a perfect one, but one that is definitely the best for all involved. Really good read overall.
Summary:
Over the last year, Jill's life has been turned upside down. She is still coping with the unexpected death of her father last year, when her mother decides that the best way to cope with her grief is to adopt a child. But not just any child.
Mandy might be almost 19, but she is not ready to cope with the child she is carrying. In Jill's mother she sees her salvation, a person who can get her away from her hometown in the midwest, away from her mother and terrible home life.
When Mandy arrives at Jill's, both are faced with decisions they didn't want to make. With a situation neither expected. With time, and patience, maybe they can come to understand each other, perhaps things will finally work out for both of them.
Reviews:
Zarr's book is a poignant look at a teenage mother who is faced with the decision of whether or not to give up her baby. Mandy is a character who doesn't know any better. She was raised with a set of morals that Jill, the product of an upper middle class family, can't understand. Mandy comes to live with Jill in the type of house she has only seen in magazines. Both have to learn to understand the other in order to find a situation they can both live with. It's a book with a happy ending, not a perfect one, but one that is definitely the best for all involved. Really good read overall.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Unwind
by Neal Shusterman
Summary:
Years before Connor, Risa, or Lev were born, a war raged in America between those who were pro-choice, and those who were pro-life. In the end a compromise is reached: abortion is ruled illegal but instead a new practice is put into place. A practice which allows parents to choose to retroactively terminate teens between the ages of 13 and 17 though a process called unwinding. This solution meant that the child itself would not be killed because all of their body parts would be used for transplants, ensuring that they live on just in different forms. Now it's been in place for years, and few question it, but for these 3 teens the death sentence put upon them might just cause the spark that causes people to see reason.
Review:
Unwind is an incredibly interesting, though disturbing, book which grabbed me from page one. More than once I wondered how something like this could happen, and then realized how easily it possibly could. The solution that was reached at the end of the war was supposed to be so ludicrous that it would shock the opposing ideological factions into realizing that their needed to be compromise. Instead it became a death sentence for many teens, and resulted in babies being born and abandoned to the state until they were of age to be harvested themselves. At first you think that everyone will see reason, but instead the demand for healthy body parts overshadows where these parts came from. In one scene the unwinding process happens to one teen, who is conscious throughout the entire procedure. It was deeply disturbing, and as a result I hesitate to recommend this book to any younger teen. The book raises a lot of flags about the danger of being too ideologically wedded to a cause, about the necessity of compromise and reason, and discusses the courage needed to finally stand up to injustice.
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Age Level: 10th Grade
Summary:
Years before Connor, Risa, or Lev were born, a war raged in America between those who were pro-choice, and those who were pro-life. In the end a compromise is reached: abortion is ruled illegal but instead a new practice is put into place. A practice which allows parents to choose to retroactively terminate teens between the ages of 13 and 17 though a process called unwinding. This solution meant that the child itself would not be killed because all of their body parts would be used for transplants, ensuring that they live on just in different forms. Now it's been in place for years, and few question it, but for these 3 teens the death sentence put upon them might just cause the spark that causes people to see reason.
Review:
Unwind is an incredibly interesting, though disturbing, book which grabbed me from page one. More than once I wondered how something like this could happen, and then realized how easily it possibly could. The solution that was reached at the end of the war was supposed to be so ludicrous that it would shock the opposing ideological factions into realizing that their needed to be compromise. Instead it became a death sentence for many teens, and resulted in babies being born and abandoned to the state until they were of age to be harvested themselves. At first you think that everyone will see reason, but instead the demand for healthy body parts overshadows where these parts came from. In one scene the unwinding process happens to one teen, who is conscious throughout the entire procedure. It was deeply disturbing, and as a result I hesitate to recommend this book to any younger teen. The book raises a lot of flags about the danger of being too ideologically wedded to a cause, about the necessity of compromise and reason, and discusses the courage needed to finally stand up to injustice.
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Age Level: 10th Grade
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