Mandy's Book of the Week (1/16)

This week's book is what they tend to call an "issues book," basically meaning that it is a piece of fiction that deals with some sort of issue that teens could possibly deal with.

Doesn't that cover look romantic?  This book is NOT a romance.  As we learned last week, don't judge a book by its cover!

This book is about Nick and Caitlin.  Nick is that hot popular guy at school who is completely out of reach of your typical girl.  Caitlin used to be fat, but she lost a lot of weight over the summer and now Nick wants to date her.

Being that she is not used to all this male attention, especially from someone like Nick, she goes out with him and they quickly fall in love.  But then he gets controlling.  And eventually verbally abusive.  And soon he starts hitting her.

But here's the thing: Nick does love Caitlin.  He loves her so much that his life is dominated by the fear of her leaving him.  In order to keep her, he thinks that he has to make her feel like absolute crap about herself so that she'll be too downtrodden to leave.

It was a hard book to read, emotionally.  It was hard for me to find sympathy for either Nick or Caitlin.  How many times did my parents tell me that you leave a boy/man that hits you?  And yet, Caitlin stayed and stayed and stayed some more.  She even went back after Nick hit her the first time.  And Nick, in the beginning, just doesn't view any of his controlling or abusive behaviors as a bad thing.  That is, until Caitlin gets a restraining order and he is forced to attend a class for men who beat their girlfriends and wives.

Once this book got going, I couldn't put it down.  It is very engaging and easy to read.