Blind Spot by Laura Ellen - NO

Ellen, Laura Blind Spot, 336 p. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. $9. Language: R (100+ swears); Violence: PG; Mature Content: R (drinking, drug use, sex off page).  

Roz’s life is a train wreck.  Her macular degeneration has taken away her central vision, but she doesn’t want to tell everyone the truth of her problem, so she fakes her way through each day.  Now her school has a mandatory Life Skills class for every student with an IEP, which angers her no end.  Her belligerence in that class sets her at odds with the teacher, who also teaches AP History and is more than happy to make her life miserable.  Things don’t get better when Roz becomes involved in a drug deal in order to help a student with a heroin addiction.  Roz just keeps digging herself a bigger and deeper hole - one that may end in hard time if she doesn’t come completely clean and get the help she needs.  

Really - this whole book is a train wreck.  As a 22 year teacher, I was incensed to see the awful way Ellen portrays every aspect of schools and school life, including students.  I am not sure where she went to school, but it must have been completely foreign to my experience - ever.  I understand creating fiction for dramatic effect, but this was way off in left field.  While the book has the draw for teens of drugs and sex and intrigue and danger, I just can’t.  

Not Recommended. Cindy, Library Teacher