I Stop Somewhere

February 1, 2018

Gr 10 Up-A devastating look at rape culture, bleaker but reminiscent of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones. After years of being bullied at her old school, Ellie Frias is determined to blend in as she starts her freshman year of high school and she is mostly successful at being invisible. It surprises her when the wealthy and charming Caleb Brewer singles her out-but people are not always what they seem. After a brutal assault, Ellie is trapped as an unwilling observer, knowing she is not the only one and that justice is hard to come by. This is heartbreakingly realistic in illustrating the ways society fails girls in Ellie's shoes. The author is also very skilled at conveying the brutality of the attacks on Ellie and the other girls without gratuitous or sensationalizing detail. However, the teen's voice feels too mature for a freshman as naive as Ellie, even one looking back at life's hard lessons. Possibly due to the awkward structure and pacing, Ellie doesn't experience much change or growth and ends the story still blaming weakness in the victims for what was done to them. VERDICT While not without merit, the storytelling is much less effective than stronger books addressing the same topic, such as Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak or Courtney Summers's All the Rage. A nonessential purchase for libraries.-Elizabeth Saxton, Tiffin, OH

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2018
Grades 9-12 When freshman Ellie Frias catches the eye of Caleb, the handsome son of a local politician, she can barely believe it. She's been desperately trying to blend in with the crowd, but Caleb makes her feel seen in a way she never imagined she'd want. Meanwhile, a pair of young men are assaulting women in the abandoned houses plaguing the small town, and when Ellie goes missing, rumors about the young men are impossible to ignore. In a breathy, lyrical voice, Carter tells an all-too-familiar story about violence, rape culture, and the damaging shortcomings of the justice system in response to sexual assault. Carter builds a deeply evocative settinga town besieged by failing industry and a vampiric real-estate developerwhich is a fitting background for a story about a community turning its back on its vulnerable residents. Though the pace drags a bit when a police investigation finally begins, the pointed conversation about rape culture and violence remains timely and important. Hand to readers who loved Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak (1999).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2019
Ellie is determined to start fresh in high school after spending middle school as a bullying victim. When wealthy Caleb shows interest, Ellie is flattered. But she soon discovers there's a darker side to his family's power and influence. This harrowing indictment of rape culture is as much a portrait of a small town in quiet crisis as it is one girl's tragic story.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)