Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Where the Stars Still Shine by Trish Dollar - NO

Doller, Trish Where the Stars Still Shine, 342 p. Bloomsbury, 2014.  $18.  Violence: G; Language: R (70+ swears, 4 ‘f’); Mature Content: R (child rape, graphic sex).  

Ten years earlier, Callie was kidnapped by her own mother and the two have been on the run ever since.  Callie has never been to school, she usually eats vending machine food. Then her mother is arrested, and Callie is returned to the father she doesn’t remember - and his new family, where she doesn’t feel she belongs.  Kat, a girl in town, adopts Callie as her best friend - because Kat remembers Callie, even if Callie doesn’t remember her.  But Callie is more interested in the town bad boy, Alex, who has problems and cracks in his own life.  How do you know what is right and wrong when you have been raised with lies?  How do you become a whole person when someone sold your body for money and security?  Callie is so confused and she doesn’t know where to urn for the truth.  

Doller shows the evil side of mental illness is this hard-hitting book.   Unfortunately, children being kidnapped by their own parents or a caregiver are the most common form of abduction.  While I understand why Callie engages in casual sex, I don’t ever understand why I need it described for me. Very simliar to If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch in subject matter - hand both of them are explicit in their descriptions. I would have to choose Murdoch’s book, though it has its own content issues.   

NO.  Cindy, Library Teacher

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