Capricious

March 1, 2014
This verse novel follows a girl juggling two boyfriends and trying to cope with her rival at school. Sixteen-year-old Ella loves two boys. She's sleeping with Samir and cares for him, but she also loves David. She insists David is just her good friend but knows that underneath, it's really a romance, and she may even prefer David to Samir. Meanwhile, she tries to avoid Genie, a girl at her high school who hates her because of her own crush on Samir. Things with Genie come to a head when circumstances force her to agree to participate in a bikini carwash. Samir strongly disapproves, but Ella shows up in a vintage 1950s two-piece bathing suit that allows her to attract more attention than anyone else while showing far less skin. To retaliate, Genie and her clique take Ella's clothes, leaving her stranded in the bikini behind a gas station for hours into the night. Eventually Ella must come to terms with her relationships with both boys and with the girls. Prendergast's unrhymed verse not only tells the tale, but varies form and line length, the clipped rhythms capturing Ella's emotional turmoil. The story touches on different religions with nuance: Samir is a devout Muslim; David is a Jew; Ella and her family are Catholic; Ella's sister is dating a Mormon. Sensitive and compelling. (Verse fiction. 12-18)

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 1, 2014

Gr 10 Up-Sixteen-year-old Ella says she is not like other girls. She is a rebel: she lies, has sex, and takes naked pictures of herself. Still reeling from the fallout of her provocative art project, arrest, and acquittal of pornography charges-in Audacious (Orca 2013)-Ella is adrift. She is sleeping with Samir and leading him to believe that she is just friends with David, though that is not exactly true. "Isn't that the point?/To Frankenstein/Two boys together/Making a perfect boyfriend?" she asks. But a boyfriend will not fix Ella's desire for identity and acceptance, and things fall apart in a predictable way. This novel in verse is a quick read, thanks to the format and the dramatic plot. Prendergast varies the style of the narrative, seamlessly integrating rhymed couplets, acrostics, and more. The narrative feels inflated at times, as Samir deals with his estranged gay brother, David copes with his brother's drug addiction, and Ella navigates myriad thorny relationships. The secondary characters are largely reduced to two-dimensional traits (the Muslim boy, the asthmatic sister, the wise disabled friend), but Ella stands out as realistic and nuanced. Though Ella's story is one of alienation and discontent, it ends on a hopeful note as she begins to repair her relationships and her own fragile sense of self-worth. Her candid approach to sex, lies, and friendship should attract a wide audience, especially readers who are drawn to deep and sometimes dark issues.-Amanda MacGregor, formerly at Apollo High School Library, St. Cloud, MN

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 16, 2013
Fans of Ellen Hopkins and Sonya Sones’s novels in verse will delight in Prendergast’s rich, riveting story, first in a planned duo. Just before Ella’s junior year, her family moves to escape their problems—her mother’s grief over the death of her baby, younger sister Kayli’s learning difficulties, Ella’s victimization by school bullies, and her father’s unwillingness to face any of it—only to continue to wrestle with the same things. Ella falls for a Palestinian classmate, Samir, bringing up questions of identity and faith for both. Samir and Ella create controversial works for the student art show, and Samir’s daring statement on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Ella’s explicit portrayal of womanhood land them in serious, but believable trouble. While the thread about Ella’s bullying and her desire to act out is weakly explained, Prendergast demonstrates a powerful understanding of the adolescent search for identity, and her writing uses the verse format to great effect, with an honest teenage voice, a willingness to play with poetic form, and an intensity that arises through the condensed language. Ages 12–up. Agent: Kris Rothstein, Carolyn Swayze Literary Agency.

July 1, 2014
In this sequel, Ella (of the vagina self-portrait that got her into so much trouble in Audacious) is juggling the affections of Samir--whose devout Muslim upbringing forbids him from openly dating her--and straight-arrow(ish) David. She's also trying to protect her little sister, who, in Ella's opinion, is growing up too fast. Flawed heroine Ella's whip-smart observations add immediacy to this verse novel.

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)