Say the Word
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Everyone in Shawna Gallagher's life expects perfection and Shawna does her best to oblige. She gets good grades, dates the right boys, and is tirelessly polite. But when her estranged mother dies suddenly, Shawna's not sure how to have the "perfect" reaction. She's still angry that her mother left ten years ago and embarrassed that she started a new family with another woman. Shawna's grief is further clouded by the step-brothers who knew her mother better than she did-this was her mother, not theirs.
But when Shawna's controlling father gets involved, Shawna realizes she may not know the whole truth about the past. As the family secrets continue to unravel, perfection becomes more and more difficult to achieve.
Jeannine Garsee has delivered a compulsively readable novel, from the dramatic story full of family secrets, to the very real, honest narrator who feels both recognizable and relatable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Garsee's (Before, After, and Somebody in Between) second novel hits the ground running and doesn't let up. Shawna Gallagher, a high school senior trying to live up to her domineering father's expectations, is awakened one night by a phone call: her estranged mother, who left Shawna and her father years earlier for a woman, Fran, has had a stroke. Following her mother's death, Shawna must confront her feelings about her mother and her own prejudices (she has particular issues with gay people, which are further complicated when her best friend comes out). Shawna's father, learning that one of Fran's sons is in fact his child by Shawna's mother, fights for (and gains) custody of the boy finally spurring Shawna to defy him. The novel overflows with story lines and plot twists Shawna's romance with her stepbrother (and her father's with her former babysitter), her ailing grandfather and the ridicule she faces in school. Nevertheless, Garsee presents a compelling portrait of a young woman growing up and coping with an overwhelming array of problems. Ages 14 up.
