false 286059 5 9 female 916824 514890 159990022X 9781599900223 27 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/514890.Before_After_and_Somebody_In_Between 3.90 79 My sympathy fades as Chardonnay twists around to spread her lips in a demented grin. Her long yellow teeth probably haven’t seen a toothbrush in months. I take a chance and smile back, and what do I get? A pudgy middle finger jabbed under my nose.
My next thought is: Wow. I may not even survive homeroom.

One hour into her first day of tenth grade, Martha Kowalski knows she’s really in trouble. The school bully, Chardonnay, has already threatened her life—and at home, things are even worse. Martha’s mom, fresh out of rehab, is shacking up with an obnoxious jerk in a neighborhood that can only be described as a “ghetto.”
More than anything she’s ever wanted, Martha wants to play the cello. But even music becomes dangerous to her health—because nothing is what it seems in this place. With her mother’s willpower dissolving, Martha watches helplessly as her own dreams slip further away.
But in an exhilarating twist that would stun even Cinderella, everything changes. A wealthy lawyer invites her into his family’s home and Martha is given a chance to start over. The warm, caring Brinkmans treat Martha like one of the family and even though it feels so right, she knows they can’t be as perfect as they seem. And she knows that this fairy tale can’t last forever…
]]> 286059 3.86 154 53 2007 4632577 1599903334 9781599903330 26 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4632577.Say_the_Word 3.85 74 Dredging up the past can knock the present right off balance.

The world expects perfection from seventeen-year-old Shawna Gallagher, and for the most part, that’s what they get. She dates the right boys, gets good grades, and follows her father’s every rule. But when her estranged lesbian mother dies, it’s more than perfect Shawna can take. Suddenly, anger from being abandoned ten years ago is resurfacing along with Shawna’s embarrassment over her mother’s other family. As she confronts family secrets and questions from the past, Shawna realizes there’s a difference between doing the perfect thing and doing the right thing.

Shawna’s honest and relatable voice will draw readers in and hold them until the last page in this coming-of-age story. Jeannine Garsee has delivered a compulsively readable second novel, perfect for fans of Sarah Dessen and Laurie Halse Anderson.</DIV>]]> 286059 3.86 154 53 2009