Beautiful

December 1, 2009
Gr 9 Up-Thirteen-year-old Cassie has bloomed. Following her family's move from an island off the coast of Washington to a Seattle suburb, she has a new attractiveness that earns her the moniker "the beautiful seventh grader." Her good looks and willingness to conform are a passport to her school's powerful clique of druggies led by Alex, a frightening but charismatic fellow seventh grader who adopts Cassie as her best friend. Cassie's compliance with Alex's demandsto burn photographs of former friends, to take acid, to have sexsecures her a position as Alex's second in command but threatens her health and safety. When Alex's half sister Sarah moves in with Alex and her wasted mother, Cassie finds her allegiance shifting from her best friend to Sarah. Reed's first novel owes a tremendous debt to Catherine Hardwicke's 2002 film "Thirteen"; however, where the filmic treatment of its 13-year-old heroines' dangerous experimentation is complicated by the richness of their characters and their interactions with one another and the supporting cast, this novel is less complex and more sensational. It is difficult to discern motivation for many of the characters, whose actionsAlex's in particularare explained in almost clichéd form, and the secondary characters are one-dimensional."Amy S. Pattee, Simmons College, Boston"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2009
Grades 10-1 This book is meant to shock, and it does. Fed up with her good-girl existence, 13-year-old Cassie uses her familys relocation as a chance to reinvent herself as an acid-dropping, dope-smoking, vodka-guzzling, coke-snorting, needle-using cypher who will dutifully sleep with any boy, provided he is popular. Cassies journey down the road to ruin is guided by the volatile Alex, who soon welcomes into her hovel a girl named Sarah, who is fleeing her molester father . . . well, you get the picture. Its a stew of depravity delivered in emotionless, repetitive language meant to convey Cassies numbness; at times, it reads like poetry. But never do we get a sense of why Cassie chose this path or what she was like before. Almost certainly this loss of identity is part of the point, though many readers will be forced to assume Cassie is mentally ill. Details of Cassies debauchery nevertheless ring true, and theres no doubt that Reeds debut will enthrall as many teens as it will repel adults.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)