Ever After: A Novel - Hardcover

Vail, Rachel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0531068382 ISBN 13: 9780531068380

Publisher: Orchard Books, 1994

Synopsis

Fourteen-year-old Molly contends with all of the new feelings of adolescence alone, deals with public knowledge of her journal's contents, and still manages to make the transition from a fragile girl into a young woman

About this title

About the Author:

Rachel Vail is the award-winning author of the critically acclaimed novels If We Kiss and Lucky, Gorgeous, and Brilliant (the Avery sisters trilogy) and more than a dozen other novels for young teens, including the Friendship Ring series. Rachel has also written many beloved picture books, including Piggy Bunny and Sometimes I'm Bombaloo, and two hit novels for elementary school kids, Justin Case: School, Drool, and Other Daily Disasters; and Justin Case: Shells, Smells, and the Horrible Flip-Flops of Doom. Rachel lives in New York City with her husband and their two sons.

From Booklist:

Gr. 5-9. In a funny, desperate story about growing up female now, 14-year-old Molly would like to do the right thing, but somehow she always messes up. She's tense and nervous with her best friend, though Molly's never sure what she's done wrong. Part of her wants to be skinny and gorgeous, though she objects to dieting in general as being "very antifeminist." Her parents are no help. Dad tells her to lighten up; Mom wants her to be more popular instead of moping around the house reading books ("Mom and I have a lot of love between us without understanding each other at all"). Sometimes it just seems easier to remain a child. Yet she does talk to a college student who acts as a kind of mentor and makes her want to grow up and go to college and "stay up all night talking about God and eating pizza." As in Vail's Wonder (1991) and Do-Over (1992), the contemporary teenage voice is exactly right. The casual dialogue manages to say a lot in the spaces between the ritual phrases ("Seriously, whatever"). Some of the best scenes are pure farce (like the episode in which Molly is trying to wiggle loose a painfully stuck panty liner while chatting at a lunch counter with the boy she likes), but by the end of the story, the comedy is muted. Her best friend betrays her; Molly stops being a "nice girl," and she cuts loose. She's starting high school on her own. It's hard and lonely. There are no simple resolutions, but teens will find the questions of crucial interest. Why are girls so weird about food and body size? How do you trust someone who could betray you? Does that mean you can't have friends? Seriously, whatever. Hazel Rochman

About this edition

• Publisher: Orchard Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0531068382
• ISBN 13: 9780531068380
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 166