Title: Sweethearts
Author: Sara ZarrPublisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 217 pages.
Copyright: 2009
Summary:
Plot: Jennifer is a senior in high school and is anxiously anticipating graduation. Her best friend, Cameron Quick, disappeared when they were both eight years old, but suddenly re-enters her life and turns it upside down.
Major characters: Jennifer and Cameron
Major subjects: Trauma, Fat-Lit, Bullying, Romance.
School Library Journal Review:Gr 7 Up— Jenna, 17, has remade herself. She's lost weight, is invited to social events, likes her alternative high school, and even has a boyfriend. In vivid detail, she recalls the bittersweet events of her earlier life. One of the few non-Mormons in her Salt Lake City grade school, she was a social pariah with only one friend, a boy named Cameron, another outcast. Readers are given fleeting glimpses of happy memories as well as the horrific traumas of their past, including a devastating experience with Cameron's cruel and abusive father and Jenna's belief that Cameron moved away and then died. When he reappears during her senior year, she reassesses her situation—and the person whom she has become—and realizes that the strength of her relationship with her friend spans time and makes her current relationships seem trivial. Zarr's sophisticated writing style, bouncing back and forth in time, teasing readers with further details, is wonderful. The main characters, and their unique bond, are well drawn and believable. Jenna struggles to see the child she was more clearly, to find a way to integrate her past into her present and to work toward self-acceptance. Despite its title, Sweethearts is not saccharine; it is substantial.—Leah Krippner, Harlem High School, Machesney Park, IL
Review: Jennifer Harris waited a long time to be Jenna Vaughn. Socially excluded from popular circles, she was at the brunt of the jokes at her public school. Her only friend and protector, Cameron Quick, vanished without a trace when she was only eight. Believing that he died, the distressed and shaken Jennifer vowed to become the person she never thought she could be, sadly at the expense of her own individuality. Flash-forward to her senior year of high school, she has found a high school sweetheart and a close-knit group of friends. She’s thin, beautiful, and on top of the world, until Cameron shows up out of the blue. Quickly her life unravels, her long-buried secrets begin to haunt her, and both Jennifer and Cameron attempt to come to terms with the truth of what happened to them eight years ago.
Presented as a problem novel with a feeble narrative, Sweethearts is a disappointment. The characters’ triumph of overcoming emotional abuse is overshadowed by the flawed representation of their individual characters. Self-absorbed and obsessed with the past, Jennifer seeks to remedy her feelings of low self-worth and compulsions to binge eat by blaming her family for her emotional distress.
I personally didn't enjoy this novel, but I can understand that some readers may be drawn to and relate to certain elements within the story, such as bullying, self-esteem and body issues, and emotional trauma.
Interview with Sara Zarr about Sweethearts:
http://blbooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/interview-with-sara-zarr.html
Reading Level: Beginner
Notes about Audience:
This book is intended for readers ages 12 and up.
Other Books by Sara Zarr:
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