Crosses
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults, an ALA Quick Pick, and an ALA Recommended Book for Reluctant Young Readers
Nancy and Katie are best friends with one big thing in common—they both cut themselves: "Not by accident, we do it purposely—and regularly—because physical pain is comforting, and because now it has become a habit."
Crosses was the first novel for young adults to deal with an increasingly widespread disorder, and "graphically describes the cry for help of many adolescents and how far they have to fall before they are even noticed" (Voice of Young Adults).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
First-time novelist Stoehr draws a hard-hitting, graphically realistic portrait of troubled adolescents who indulge in alcohol, drugs, sex, shoplifting and ``cutting'' themselves, deliberately, an activity that somehow assuages inner turmoil. Fifteen-year-old Nancy's first-person narrative, more a journal than a story, spans the years 1985 to 1988. This intrinsically intelligent teenager embodies the punk look and attitude. Meeting Katie, a like-minded schoolmate who becomes her closest friend, draws Nancy even deeper into a risk-taking ideology that occasionally results in ineffectual punishment at school and at home--where the environment is hardly idyllic. Expletives abound in this provocative work, and one hopes that the contents won't inspire like behavior among foolishly curious readers. Yet this morbidly compelling chronicle of promising lives gone astray commands attention throughout. Ages 14-up.
