Review: I downloaded The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney to my Kindle in anticipation of reading the ARC of its sequel The Rivals. I am so glad I did. The Mockingbirds seemed to combine some of the best aspects of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War and Knowles’ A Separate Peace. At times it even reminded me of John Green’s Waiting for Alaska. But this book stands on its own and has its own merit. From the first paragraph on the first page you are thrown into the life of the main character Alex, a junior girl at an elite boarding school, who has been date raped.
What I enjoyed about this story is how it dealt with the rape in a very realistic way. You see Alex attempting to discern where the responsibility for the rape lies and how to move on with her life. With such a serious subject this book could have become very dark and depressing very fast. But it isn’t. There are times where it is graphic, the imagery and the language may make you squirm but that is offset with the very regular interactions the teen characters have. Crushes, school work, clubs and more. Whitney also does a great job of examining what happens when schools have a history of caring more for their record than for their students and what types of change students can initiate.
This is definitely a book written for high school aged students. I think it would appeal more to females than males, but males could get a lot out of it as well. I think that if I were to teach a book about a subject such a date rape I would be more likely to teach Speak due to some of the graphic nature of this book. I could however, see myself recommending this book to students or having it on a list (along with most of the other titles I mentioned earlier) to read alongside Speak for some sort of comparison project. The Mockingbirds is also one of those books that I will be recommending to my friends who don’t read YA the way I do. I believe this is a crossover book that adults can read and learn from as much as teens.
The Lowdown:
RL: 4-5 grade, lexile rating of HL720L (THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT A BOOK FOR 4th or 5th GRADERS)
Interest Level: High School (I could see 8th graders reading it but it might get a little heavy for younger teens)
Awards:
- A Romantic Times Best Book of 2010
- A Best Book for Young Adults – American Library Association
- An NPR Best Book of 2010
- An Association of Booksellers for Children New Voices Pick for 2010
- Chicago Public Library Best of Best Books for Teens in 2010
- Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award Honorable Mention
- An Indie Next List Pick
- A GoodReads Mover and Shaker for November 2010
- The Books-A-Million teen book club pick for January 2011
Stay tuned for my upcoming review of The Rivals!
Filed under: ALA Awards, Alcohol, Boarding School, First Love/Crushes, Individual Read, John Green, Laurie Halse Anderson, Realistic Fiction, Sexual Assault, Teen Girls | Tagged: ALA Awards, Daisy Whitney, John Green, Laurie Halse Anderson, Robert Cormier, YA Literature, Young Adult | 2 Comments »
YA Lit- The Good, The Bad, The Ugly 