Pretty
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"Coming-of-age never looked so beautiful." - Kirkus (Starred Review)
"[A] powerful story of growth and change, brimming with honesty and hope." - Publishers Weekly
"Students who might not yet be ready for Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give will find an equally compelling narrator and story in Pretty." - VOYA Reviews
Sophie's perspective on what being pretty really means changes drastically in the second adjective-busting novel by the author of Husky, Justin Sayre.
Sayre details the private and public life of a thirteen-year-old burdened with far more than the middle-school adjective of Pretty. Though she appears confident, stylish, and easygoing at school, Sophie lives a nightmare at home. When her mother's alcohol addiction spirals out of control, Sophie's Auntie Amara steps in to help. She teaches Sophie new lessons about her family and heritage, while also challenging her to rethink how she feels about friends, boys, and even her sense of place in the Brooklyn neighborhood where she lives. Sayre, a master storyteller in the coming-of-age genre, asks readers to confront superficial assumptions about gender and beauty, and breathes new life into the canon of middle-grade realistic fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sayre's engrossing second novel takes place in the same Brooklyn neighborhood as his debut, with Davis, Husky's protagonist, playing a supporting role, along with their eclectic friends. Sophie, an African-American eighth grader, doesn't mind being called pretty. "I guess I know I'm cute," she reflects. "Especially when the look is right and the hair is on point." She takes pains, however, to hide the ugly realities of her home life: the accumulated liquor bottles she recycles and her mother's terrifying drunken rages. After one particularly awful night, her mother leaves for a monthlong work trip in Paris, and Sophie's Auntie Amara moves in. Having an adult around who pays attention initially baffles Sophie, but she begins to let down her guard. As she spends more and more with Auntie Amara, including visits to her aunt's hair salon and Harlem church, Sophie gains greater self-awareness and the courage to face the difficult choices that await upon her mother's return. It's a powerful story of growth and change, brimming with honesty and hope. Ages 10 up.
