Never Said - Hardcover

Williams, Carol Lynch

3.41

330 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0310746612 ISBN 13: 9780310746614

Publisher: Blink, 2015

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For as long as she can remember, Sarah’s family life has revolved around her twin sister, Annie—the pretty one, the social one, the girl who can do anything. The person everyone seems to wish Sarah—with her crippling shyness—could simply become.

When Annie suddenly chops off her hair, quits beauty pageants, and gains weight, the focus changes—Annie is still the star of the family, but for all the wrong reasons. Sarah knows something has happened, but she too is caught in her own spiral after her boyfriend breaks up with her and starts hanging out with one of Annie’s old friends.

Annie is intent on keeping her painful secret safe. But when she and Sarah start spending time together again for the first time in years, walls start to break on both sides ... and words that had been left unsaid could change everything.

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About the Author:

Award-winning author of more than twenty-five books and a graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts with an MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults, Carol Lynch Williams facilitates a week-long workshop to help writers get published (www.wifyr.com). She lives in Utah with her family. Visit her at her blog, Throwing Up Words.

From School Library Journal:

Gr 9 Up—The story of twins, Sarah and Annie, whose relationship has suffered as each struggles with her own issues. Sarah, whose chapters are all in prose, has severe social anxiety and recently experienced an unexpected breakup. Annie, whose chapters are all in poetry, is a former beauty queen who has started overeating and gained 45 pounds since she quit pageants suddenly a year ago. Hanging over everything is the influence of adults in this story—Sarah's boyfriend broke up with her at his mother's insistence, and Annie's weight gain has upset her whole family's dynamic—in fact, the whole town seems to be overly concerned that she is, by their standards, no longer pretty. During the course of the novel, the sisters' relationship deepens. The eventual reveal of the sexual trauma that caused Annie to gain weight is expected, but the exact circumstances are unnerving and feel out of place and unresolved. The first book by the publisher that feels decidedly mainstream YA and not their previous more Christian fiction fare, this title unevenly handles important topics. VERDICT While this is an overall engaging read, the strange decisions both protagonists make, the overbearing parents, and the constant message that being overweight is the worst thing that can happen to a girl will put off many teens.—Sarah Jones, Clinton-Macomb Public Library, MI

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