Girl on the Other Side
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Short-listed for the 2010 CLA Young Adult Book Award
Tabby Freeman and Lora Froggett go to the same school, but they live in totally opposite worlds. Tabby is rich, pretty, and the most popular girl in her class. But behind closed doors, her perfect life is rapidly coming apart at the seams.
On the other side, Lora is smart, timid, and the constant target of bullies. While struggling to survive the piranha-infested halls of her school, she becomes increasingly nervous that somebody might discover the unbearable truth about whats been happening to her family.
Despite their differences, Tabby and Lora have something in common theyre both harbouring dark secrets and a lot of pain. Although theyve never been friends, a series of strange events causes their lives to crash together in ways neither could have ever imagined. And when the dust finally settles and all their secrets are forced out into the light, will the girls be saved or destroyed?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kerbel's moving if fairly predictable novel opens with one distraught girl hearing another girl crying in a neighboring bathroom stall at school. The narrative then jumps back to flesh out each girl's life. Popular Tabby is bitter about her wealthy parents' emotional remoteness and lack of attention; tormented outcast Lora tries to keep her grades up ("A scholarship is going to be my one-way ticket out of this abyss") while caring for her siblings and invalid mother. When Tabby learns that her father may be involved in shady activity at work, she rats her parents out in a moment of anger, resulting in her father's arrest. Tabby is surprised by the ramifications of her actions, including her own ostracism, which is odd considering she knows her popularity rested on her family's status. When the girls meet in the bathroom, Lora is shocked to find "head piranha" Tabby being kind to her, but it's not until a fire at Tabby's house that the girls truly connect, a conclusion that feels both foregone and anticlimactic. Still, Kerbel's depictions of each girl's very different brands of personal pain are stirring. Ages 12 up.
