Posted on April 23rd, 2012 by pajamapress
This is a beautiful book. I don’t mean the story, but the package. Congrats to the design department at Pajama Press: I was so busy admiring the fonts and running my fingers over the jacket that I almost forgot to read the book. But I’m glad I did.
True Blue is not beautiful. It’s gritty and bitter and sensitive and unflinching – both ripped from the headlines and totally unique. The mystery kept me guessing, and the characters kept me up late…
…Casey, full of faith and confidence. Stephanie, who annoyed me so much I caught myself thinking that Casey would have been totally justified in killing her. The teacher, Miss Burke, whose courage had me in tears. Jess’s mother, paralyzed by her own helplessness. And complex, conflicted Jess, who wants something she can’t even identify, and resents Casey almost as much as she loves her. Jess isn’t admirable, but she’s totally compelling. These people are worth your time.
Click here to read the full review
Posted in True Blue | Tagged 10-stories-up, beautiful, blog, book, Canada, canadian, court, crime, deborah-ellis, design, fiction, gritty, murder, mystery, Novel, Pajama Press, Review, suspense, ten-stories-up, true-blue, ya
Posted on April 16th, 2012 by pajamapress
Ellis explores the courage it takes to stand up for a friend in a town shattered by a murder. Jess’s best friend, Casey White, has ambition and passion. A budding entomologist, she seeks an adventurous life outside their small town. So when Casey is inexplicably arrested for the murder of a girl at a camp where the teens are counselors, Jess feels incredibly alone. The townspeople are quick to assume Casey’s guilt. While Jess’s mother (a woman with a mental illness) demands a call to action to release Casey from jail, Jess says nothing to defend her best friend to her cruel and small-minded classmates. Jess wants Casey to be exonerated and goes so far as to dream up an escape plan but, in the end, she fails to come to Casey’s aid and actually helps the prosecution build the against her. Ellis’s masterful novel makes every word count, thus highlighting Jess as a deeply conflicted, not totally reliable, narrator who is so afraid of losing the only part of her life that she values–Casey–that she doesn’t realize how much her actions have cost her. A compelling and moving read, True Blue is about the courage to believe in oneself and fight for what’s right, even when it is the hardest thing to do. A book worthy of any school curriculum.
–Kimberly Garnick Giarratano, Northampton Community College, Hawley, PA
Posted in True Blue | Tagged adolescence, Canada, conduct-of-life, court, deborah-ellis, ellis, fiction, friendship, Juvenile, juvenile literature, kimberly-garnick-giarratano, literature, media, murder, murder-mystery, mystery, Novel, Pajama Press, Review, school-library-journal, slj, suspense, teen, true-blue, ya, young-adult