What "really" happened at the back of the bus?
Did they, or didn't they?
Did she, or didn't she?
"Something" happened to fourteen-y... read full description
reviews
May 13, 2010
Madeline
rated it: 
I must be getting tired of YA literature, because this one just didn't do it for me. Or maybe I'm still recovering from the emotional slap in the face that was Speak. Either way, I just wasn't a fan.
It was mostly the main character - although unreliable narrators can be good in a story, I didn't feel that way about Maisie. She didn't just lie to the other characters in the book, she lied to the reader. She gives us her account of an event, spends the story vehemently insisting that More...
It was mostly the main character - although unreliable narrators can be good in a story, I didn't feel that way about Maisie. She didn't just lie to the other characters in the book, she lied to the reader. She gives us her account of an event, spends the story vehemently insisting that More...
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Jan 10, 2010
Nian
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I felt like I was in stuck in some sort of time loop thing (like Sam and Dean were in a previous episode of Supernatural, if you know what I'm talking about) the entire time I was reading. The story jumps from all different points of time, back and forth, back again, and so forth. Maisie's recount of the "bus incident" is like a scratched DVD with a mind of its own: it plays the first scene, then replays itself, but with an added twist. So each time Maisie tells her story, it's another
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Mar 09, 2011
Jackie
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Four friends...friends since preschool see their lives and relationship disintegrate as they reach their teens. Kevin, Chris, Shakes (Edward), and Maisie are dealing with hormonal angst when they start high school. Shakes and Maisie draw closer than friendship dictates and their relationship takes on a new level. Whether spurred on by jealously, hormones, or peers, Chris and Kevin assault Maisie on the bus. They are enamored with her 'big boobs' as Maisie calls them, and they ask to touch them.
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Mar 04, 2009
Jennifer
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Reviewed by Sally Kruger aka "Readingjunky" for TeensReadToo.com
Sorry, there's no cover art available yet for TOUCH by Francine Prose, but I recommend it as a good read no matter what they decide to do with the cover. Prose is the author of such YA titles as AFTER and BULLYVILLE, and TOUCH is sure to please her previous fans and help create new ones.
TOUCH is the story of trauma and its ability to manipulate the truth. Maisie has three very good friends - Shakes More...
Sorry, there's no cover art available yet for TOUCH by Francine Prose, but I recommend it as a good read no matter what they decide to do with the cover. Prose is the author of such YA titles as AFTER and BULLYVILLE, and TOUCH is sure to please her previous fans and help create new ones.
TOUCH is the story of trauma and its ability to manipulate the truth. Maisie has three very good friends - Shakes More...
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Jan 31, 2011
Judy
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"Touch" takes on the subject of adolescence in today's society. Francine Prose effectively conveys the confused feelings our teenagers have to face in this modern culture. Maisie, the protagonist, finds herself in a web of drama, distortions, half-truths, and pressure from family, the law, the school's administration, her peers, and her once childhood friends. While having to deal with this, she also must sort through her own personal confusion of feelings that the physical changes
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Oct 22, 2010
Angela
rated it: 
Many women around the world have been harassed in some sort of way. It may be forms of verbal harassment, or cyber harassment but a lot of harassment against women is sexual.Francine Prose captures the emotional and difficult journey of a fourteen year old girl who gets sexually harassed by her three best guy friends at the back of a school bus.
The story starts off with Maisie, the fourteen year old main character, telling a repetitive dream she is having to her therapist. Maisie More...
The story starts off with Maisie, the fourteen year old main character, telling a repetitive dream she is having to her therapist. Maisie More...
Nov 09, 2009
Diane
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It’s freshman year and something happened to Maisie on the school bus. Stepmom is suing the school district, Maisie is seeing a counselor, and no one at school is speaking to Maisie, which is actually an improvement over the jiggling coins and drawings on the bathroom wall. What really happened is unclear, even to Maisie, except for one thing – she has lost her best friend.
This is a story of growing up, changing bodies, changing attitudes, how confusing emotions can lead to mistakes, a More...
This is a story of growing up, changing bodies, changing attitudes, how confusing emotions can lead to mistakes, a More...
Oct 10, 2009
Teen
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Maisie is 14 and her best friends are, and have been since preschool, boys: Kevin, Chris and Shakes. Maisie lives with her dad and stepmom, who she has battles with daily, so for her 8th grade year Maisie decides to live with her mom and her new stepdad. By the time she returns for her 9th grade year her biggest hope is that everything will still be the same with her friends, but things have changed, especially with Maisie’s body: she now has large breasts. The boys don’t know how to treat her a
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Jan 03, 2010
Erica
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In the first few pages of this book, I wasn't sure if I would be able to care about Maisie. But as her back story was slowly revealed I became sympathetic to her situation. Through her parents' divorce and subsequent remarriages she feels as though she's been pushed aside so that her parents can give their new spouses the attention they should be giving her. Shakes, Chris, and Kevin are the only support she has. But now they don't just see her as a friend -now in their eyes she's become a gir
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Aug 31, 2009
E.
rated it:
This distressing, sad, but ultimately hopeful novel captured me instantaneously. Maisie's story is unfortunately similar to things we hear of happening at high schools around the country, but what I love about this particular telling is that it captures Maisie as a person, not simply as a victim. Having spent all her life three boys for best friends, Maisie never expected these boys to betray her in this terrible way. Returning from a year out west with her mother, she's come home hoping that he
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Jan 02, 2010
Rakisha
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Maisie had 3 BFFs since preschool, and they happened to be boys. They used to be really tight until returned from a year-long visit with her mother sporting D-cup breasts. Maisie was no longer a kid, and neither were her 3 male buddies. Confusion, raging hormones, and peer pressure cause a rift in their friendships. It becomes wider when Maisie becomes more than just friends with Shakes, one fourth of her crew. The two other boys feel left out, and take their revenge by forcing Maisie to allow t
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Feb 06, 2011
Savannah (Books With Bite)
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This book is hard to read. We go through so many emotional rides with the characters and her feelings. After such a dramatic event Masie just froze. Lines were crossed where they shoudn't have been and major trust was broken. Despite everything, Masie was strong. She stood with her held high and did the right thing. I was sadden by the events in the story and how her best friends betrayed her. I couldn't even imagine going through what she went through. Especially with all the extra harassment f
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Aug 10, 2011
Christy
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I heard Prose interviewed on NPR a few weeks ago talking about this book and thought I would give it a shot.
The short novel takes place in a small town in Philadelphia and tells the story of 14 year-old Maise and her 3 best friends (all boys). When Maise comes back after a year away and a teenage growth spurt, she is surprised to discover that her friends don't treat her quite the same as before. Written in first person, Prose does a decent job of getting into the mind of a 14-year old girl More...
The short novel takes place in a small town in Philadelphia and tells the story of 14 year-old Maise and her 3 best friends (all boys). When Maise comes back after a year away and a teenage growth spurt, she is surprised to discover that her friends don't treat her quite the same as before. Written in first person, Prose does a decent job of getting into the mind of a 14-year old girl More...
Nov 07, 2009
AnnaBnana
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Unhappy living with her dad and evil stepmother, Maisie leaves for the school year to live with her mom in Wisconsin. She wonders if it might be a mistake to leave the 3 boys she's been best friends with since preschool, but ultimately decides they'll always be friends as they always have been. Turns out Wisconsin isn't anything Maisie hoped for though, and as soon as the bell rings to let out for summer, Maisie heads back home. Problem is, when Maisie left, she was just one of the guys, but
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Mar 21, 2010
Kimberly
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I read this book in one sitting partially because it was a quick read and partially because I just had to know what would happen. Maisie Marbury's three best friends are Kevin, Chris, and Shakes... all boys. They've been best friends since preschool. But when Maisie goes away for a year to visit her mom in Wisconsin, she comes back and they're not so close anymore. Everyone has changed, and Maisie tries to deny it, but she knows nothing will ever be the same. Especially when one day, at the bac
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Nov 10, 2009
Kat
rated it:
What really happened that day in the back of the school bus? This story is tragically realistic, and it is written well for its intended age group. It can be hard to find something for junior high and early high school students on a tough topic like inappropriate touching or sexual assault without being a full-on troubling teen novel about rape, incest, or other disturbing sexual violence. While its important to hear the voices of female victims of any type of assault, "Touch" tells a
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Aug 13, 2009
Alex
rated it:
Touch has a really good premise. I like the description, reading about the mystery of what happened that fateful day on the bus. But... the book fell flat for me. The description on the cover flap is the high point- the actual novel is more meh.
The writing is good. It sounds young, it's clipped with short sentences, but that's the point (I'm assuming). Maisie is, after all, only 14. She's not some wise-old adult. She doesn't have a mature voice, and that's fine. Although sometimes, M More...
The writing is good. It sounds young, it's clipped with short sentences, but that's the point (I'm assuming). Maisie is, after all, only 14. She's not some wise-old adult. She doesn't have a mature voice, and that's fine. Although sometimes, M More...
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Sep 30, 2011
Olivia
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The book "Touch" by Francine Prose is set in the life of freshmen Maisie Willard. When Maisie is sexually harassed by her so called "three best friends" Chris, Kevin, and Shakes, Maisie's life is turned upside down. Being dragged through court, a wicked stepmother's lectures, therapy, and the constant bullying at school, Maisie has nowhere to turn to. Her stepbrother Josh Darling is a pain in her rear-end, her so called mother makes virtually no effort to be apart of her life
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Jun 06, 2011
Catherine
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Although I'm a longtime fan of Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer, this is actual the first piece of her fiction that I've read. Giving how much (both qualitatively and quantitatively) Prose thinks about the writing of fiction, I was expecting something interesting and I was not disappointed.
Prose has created a wonderful narrator in Maisie Willard, not so much in her voice (I've read other YA narrators that frankly blow Maisie out of the water for voice) but rather in her ability More...
Prose has created a wonderful narrator in Maisie Willard, not so much in her voice (I've read other YA narrators that frankly blow Maisie out of the water for voice) but rather in her ability More...
Mar 24, 2011
Melissa
rated it:
Something happened to Maisie when she and 3 other boys, her best friends, were at the back of the bus during a school trip. But none of them are telling the truth. Soon, the story explodes and parents, the school and lawyers are called in. It becomes news and everyone’s lives are changed.
Touch is a good book for young teenagers who want to be introduced to more “dramatic” genres of YA fiction, sub-genres involving molestation, rape, and so on and so forth. The subject matter here is on More...
Touch is a good book for young teenagers who want to be introduced to more “dramatic” genres of YA fiction, sub-genres involving molestation, rape, and so on and so forth. The subject matter here is on More...
Mar 27, 2010
Michelle
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Touch is an intense book that looks at a problem that is often overlooked in many junior and senior high schools. As a junior high school teacher, I have several students who I know have had "friends" inappropriately touch them, and this book tells of a girl, Maisie, who learns something important from her experience. After coming back to the town she lived in as a child, Maisie is grown up...she has changed and her three best friends--boys--notice. One day on the bus, she is touched
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Jul 20, 2011
Eryn
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Another fairly good novel by Francine Prose. I like how well she managed to mirror a situation so closely to real life - the characters seemed authentic. However, she leaves every story with very little in the way of a resolution. Something this important, a good lesson for kids to understand as they grow older and begin to develop into the little adults they want to be, should not be done so lightly. The character made a bigger problem of her little lie than the fact that three boys fondled her
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Sep 18, 2009
Jennifer
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Maisie has always been best friends with 3 boys. When she moves away for one year and then returns, puberty has hit and Maisie has grown large breasts. As soon as she meets up with her friends after that year, she discovers that their relationships have changed. When she begins a tentative romance with Shakes, her other two friends discover it and ask if they can touch her breasts like he does. After this traumatic experience, Maisie finds herself telling different tales about what actually happ
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Sep 13, 2009
Sarai
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Maisie has been friends with Shakes, Chris, and Kevin since they were in elementary school. But after returning from a year living with her father, Maisie has filled out and her friendship with the boys becomes strained. Then a story gets out about how the boys touched Maisie on the back of the bus, and suddenly her step-mother has hired a lawyer, Maisie has to see a shrink, and school and her friendships will never be the same. But what really happened on the back of the bus?
This st More...
This st More...
Oct 22, 2009
Kate
rated it:
Touch is the story of 14 year old Maisie, who's 3 best friends are boys. One day on the back of the bus, they touch her inappropriately and thus touches off a saga as she attempts to remember 'what really happened' and deal with regular life in the process.
Prose's book doesn't stack up to another great teen drama I recently read, Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak. The book is a quick read and not bad, but it doesn't grip you in a way it should. As a protagonist, Maisie is not a terr More...
Prose's book doesn't stack up to another great teen drama I recently read, Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak. The book is a quick read and not bad, but it doesn't grip you in a way it should. As a protagonist, Maisie is not a terr More...
Jun 14, 2010
Rhonda
rated it:
This was an interesting book, it takes a look at a teenage girl's life and how her body changes and how that affects who she is becoming. Masie has always been just one of the guys along with her three best guy friends from preschool.
Life gets harder for Maisie as she has to deal with the pressure of step parents and she is not fond of her new step mother so she moves to Wisconsin for a year with her mother. When she comes back home to her father and three best friends she realizes tha More...
Life gets harder for Maisie as she has to deal with the pressure of step parents and she is not fond of her new step mother so she moves to Wisconsin for a year with her mother. When she comes back home to her father and three best friends she realizes tha More...
Oct 12, 2011
The touch is a interresting book im berly starting to read.wat happend in the back of the bus. maissei a 14th year gurl the got touch by her 3 friends. the her parents acusse them for inapopropriately touch maisie ..her 3 best friends. she dot wahat her friends to see them in jail.When the school find out about it everyone star talking about many diferents way in 3 storys told the maisie dindt wat to tell the true .so denied everythng but then wen she went to court wit her 2 friens ,.The court
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Jun 24, 2009
Katie
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Nobody knows what really happened that day on the school bus. Not even Maisie knows the truth of what happened to her anymore. The boys, her former best friends, say one thing. Maisie tells a different story. Who is actually telling the truth? Are either of them telling the truth or only their version of the truth?
I don't have a whole lot to say about Touch. It was a very fascinating story about how the someone can tell what they think is the truth while in reality they don't really More...
I don't have a whole lot to say about Touch. It was a very fascinating story about how the someone can tell what they think is the truth while in reality they don't really More...
Oct 24, 2010
Jennifer
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Something happened to fourteen-year-old Maisie Willard—something involving her three friends, all boys. But their stories don't match, and the rumors spin out of control. Then other people get involved . . . the school, the parents, the lawyers. The incident at the back of the bus becomes the center of Maisie's life and the talk of the school, and, horribly, it becomes news. With just a few words and a touch, the kids and their community are changed forever.
From nationally acclaimed More...
From nationally acclaimed More...
Nov 10, 2011
Radha
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What do you do when no one knows the truth – not even yourself?
Touch by Francine Prose
HarperTeen, New York, 2009.
“Touch” by Francine Prose may peak interest by the title alone, but the novel itself addresses many issues that young adolescents face in today’s society, such as acceptance, puberty, and family disputes. Maisie Willard was best friends with Shakes, Chris, and Kevin from pre-school until she moved to Wisconsin to live with her mother for a year. When she More...
Touch by Francine Prose
HarperTeen, New York, 2009.
“Touch” by Francine Prose may peak interest by the title alone, but the novel itself addresses many issues that young adolescents face in today’s society, such as acceptance, puberty, and family disputes. Maisie Willard was best friends with Shakes, Chris, and Kevin from pre-school until she moved to Wisconsin to live with her mother for a year. When she More...
