Calling Maggie May

July 1, 2015

Gr 10 Up-In this first-person diarylike novel in the tradition of Go Ask Alice, Maggie lives an ordinary life, which consists of going to school and coming home to her controlling parents. That predictable routine changes when she becomes entangled with Ada Calver. Ada has it all and is everything that Maggie isn't-gorgeous, confident, and self-assured. The teens become friends, and Maggie learns the real reason Ada seems mature and experienced: Ada is a prostitute. Maggie also gets involved with sex trafficking, and her old life starts to fall apart. She's failing school and fighting with her parents; her life has completely transformed. Can Maggie turn herself around before it's too late? Though the sympathetic protagonist is a typical high school girl, she is painted as overly naive, someone who always makes the wrong decision. Every choice she makes drives her deeper and deeper down a dark hole. There's no real lightbulb moment for Maggie, and through her diary, readers have to follow the doomed path. There's no character growth, and the book seems to offer teens a story of destruction rather than a cautionary tale. Nevertheless, this is an important, eye-opening read for young adults. VERDICT For a better look into the harsh realities of the dark world of child prostitution, recommend Nicole Maggi's The Forgetting (Sourcebooks) and E.R. Frank's Dime (S. & S., both 2015) instead.-Caitlin Wilson, Brooklyn Public Library

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