Who Says I Can't - Hardcover

Ryan, Mary C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316763748 ISBN 13: 9780316763745

Publisher: Little Brown & Co, 1988

In an attempt to emulate her outgoing mother, Tessa auditions for--and wins--the job of directing the school talent show, but things go awry when her newfound power goes to her head

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From Publishers Weekly:

Tessa is a daydreamer, while her mother is a doera community leader of cultural affairs, who is willing to go all out to direct other people's lives successfully. The class punk, Alan, has been trying to get Tessa's attention, but her friends, pointing to her mother's status in the community, believe that his interest in her is tied to her mother: if Tessa (like mother, like daughter) becomes the student director of the upcoming talent show, Alan's band, Zeb and the Zombies, may have the chance to perform. Tessa takes on the directorship and gives Rodney, an athlete with brains, the chance to do a "sensitive" reading, while excluding Alan. She is blind to Rodney's tactics, which are basically the same as those she believed motivated Alan. By book's end, Tessa has been fired, Alan is her one true love, and Rodney is the creep he set out to be. No surprises from the author of Frankie's Run in this very formulaic teen romance. The most interesting character is Tessa's mother, who does a 180-degree turnaround in the last pages of the booka turn, by the way, that is as poignant as it is unlikely. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 7-10 Tenth-grader Tessa Talbert uses daydreaming to escape from her art league director mother's overwhelming expectations. But when Alan Zybczynski, in an amorous effort to capture her attention, makes an all-too personal public remark about her, Tessa decides to interact with the real world to exact revenge. Emulating her glamorous mother's power-gathering machinations, Tessa maneuvers herself into becoming the director of the school talent show. She cruelly denies talented Alan a place in the show. Next, she arranges star treatment for her heartthrob, Rod Westphal. It all seems so easy until Tessa's best friends make themselves scarce, her mother shows up to run things, and the cast and crew go on strike. Ryan's first-person narration is fast-paced, natural, and humorous in giving a truthful view of a privileged adolescent's needy emotional life. Conflicting values among the members of this family will impel readers to examine their own. A well-crafted ``fun read.'' Cindy Darling Codell, Belmont Jr . High Sch . , Winchester, Ky.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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