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Title: True Confessions of a Heartless Girl by Martha Brooks ISBN: 0-374-37806-1 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 11 March, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.29 (7 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Blah...Happy Ending... Blah .... Blah
Comment: The story begins with Noreen being taken in by a cafe owner Lynda after she has a falling out with her boyfriend. After being coaxed by one of Lynda's friends, Dolores, and the whole story falls out, how Noreen didnt like here step dad and turned 'bad' so moved in with her newlywed step sister, where she still acts the same. She runs away from home with boyfriend Brandon , to return home with Wesely, where she get in a fight with her sister, to just move in with Wesely, who adores her. Well Noreen becomes bored and starts using Wesely's saved up money. They have a fight and she runs away with 700 of his dollars, his car, and his future child. And she now finds herself in the present story living in a cafe in a small town. To blinded by their ego the two split only to think about each other often while away. The two come together several times but after the third or so the two (well Noreen) realize their love for each other and everyone gets their happy ending. Im rating it three stars because this story was just so.. Boring.. The story seemed to drag on, and Noreen's heartless behavior made you want to smack her one. But hey! if you like this book,good for you, its what ever floats your boat.
Rating: 5
Summary: What, really, was left but this?
Comment: Here is the quote that begins "True Confessions of a Heartless Girl":
"The American novelist John Gardner, I think it was, said there are, really, only two plot lines: a stranger rides into town, and a stranger rides out of town", - William Least Heat-Moon "PrairyErth".
This book begins with the former. In it, seventeen-year-old Noreen Stall has arrived at the M.T. Café in a stolen truck, her pockets full of stolen money, and a baby growing in her womb. She has arrived in a small Canadian town in the middle of nowhere without direction or hope. Winner of the 2002 Governor General's Literary Award (think of it as the Canadian Newbery), this book is one of the most quietly moving pieces of young adult literature I have ever read.
Author Martha Brooks has created a small stirring story. Individual characters meet and mix with Noreen, showing their own private sorrows and disappointments in life. The girl herself seems to attract nothing but bad luck and trouble, and it's difficult to see how exactly she's going to change her life around.
This is not a story where everything slowly gets better and better for Noreen until, at the end, she's bursting with enough joy and happiness to fill her days. It's subtler than that. More realistic. And filled with beautiful well-thought out characters. Following in a long line of stories in which a single girl finds herself surrounded by occasionally understanding people, this book is nothing so much as an older version of "The Great Gilly Hopkins".
Moralistic parents beware. This story does contain a fair amount of swearing (though I was amused by the Canadian/British bad word "bugger" showing up as well) in addition to discussions of abortion and miscarriages. And I don't know how interesting this book is to kids and teens. After all, much of this story concentrates on the thoughts and emotions of the middle-aged and elderly. Not typical YA fare. But for any teen that is looking for a book that shows real problems without becoming didactic, preachy, or condescending, this story is ideal. There are no easy answers. Noreen isn't going to be saved by the kindness of strangers. This book deals with the truth and its ending is satisfactory in the extreme.
Rating: 5
Summary: Richie's Picks: TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A HEARTLESS GIRL
Comment: Noreen, who is seventeen and newly-pregnant, is a human demolition derby who has stolen her latest boyfriend's money and truck. Running away from her latest disaster, she finds herself in the small prairie town of Pembina Lake. There she becomes the catalyst for change among all the story's other impeccably drawn characters, ranging from five year-old Seth to septuagenarian Dolores. The old café in town where newly-arrived Noreen takes shelter from the storm is symbolic of the characters in Pembina Lake--they too are going to rot away and collapse if this obnoxious teenager doesn't tear at their edges as she does with the café wallpaper.
This is a remarkable story with just a couple of settings, amazing dialogue, and portraits of a small town that frequently made me shiver the way I did when first reading Steinbeck's 1930's descriptions of Salinas.
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Title: The First Part Last by Angela Johnson ISBN: 0689849222 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Pub. Date: 01 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Fat Kid Rules the World (Bccb Blue Ribbon Fiction Books) by K.L. Going ISBN: 0399239901 Publisher: Putnam Pub Group Juv Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.99 |
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Title: A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly ISBN: 0152167056 Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler ISBN: 0763619582 Publisher: Candlewick Press Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.99 |
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Title: Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes ISBN: 0060535431 Publisher: Greenwillow Pub. Date: 12 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.99 |
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