Live Through This
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
When a relationship trespasses the boundaries of trust, the consequences are complex in this nuanced page-turner from “a formidable talent” (Booklist).
If Coley Sterling’s best friend would stop hating her, if her dance-team captains would lighten up, if her friends would stop asking her about Reece, the geeky sax player she’s crushing on—then her life would be perfect. Right? After all, Coley’s stepdad is a successful attorney who gives Coley and her siblings everything, and her mother will stop at nothing to keep them all happy and safe—including having escaped ten years ago from the abuse of Coley’s real father.
But Coley is keeping a lot of secrets. She won’t admit—not even to herself—that her almost-perfect life is her own carefully crafted façade. Now, Coley and Reece are getting closer, and a decade’s worth of Coley’s lies are on the verge of unraveling—along with the life she thought she knew.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Scott (Freefall) delivers another intense and often uncomfortable portrait of a teenager in a desperate situation. Coley has a generally happy family life, does well in school and on the dance team, and she's starting to fall for a nice boy named Reece, who could become her first real boyfriend. But she's also being raped by someone close to her, and she feels partially responsible for the ongoing abuse. Scott crafts natural dialogue, and conversations between Coley and her friends Ming and Noah give the story an easy momentum, creating a disconcerting contrast between Coley's "normal" outside environment and her inner agony. The thought of sharing a secret so deeply buried is inconceivable to Coley, who actively relies on denial to cope. The identity of the perpetrator is clumsily telegraphed and "revealed" to readers much too late, but Scott handles Coley's confusion over her own body's reactions to the assaults and her conflicted love for her abuser with subtlety and sensitivity. Coley's final acceptance that she has been victimized delivers a powerful and hopeful conclusion. Ages 14 up.
