Read It UP!

We all have regrets in life.  Things we wish we could erase from our past.  This is a complicated tale about Deanna, her ex Tommy, her brother, her parents and her friends.  Deanna’s life is full of regrets.  When she was thirteen she had a sexual relationship with a her brother’s bestfriend Tommy (who was seventeen at the time.)  No one knew for almost a year, until her father followed them to their makeout spot and caught them having sex.  He was horrified and never looked her in the eye after that day.  Tommy, being an insensitive jerk, spread it all around school.  He told a bunch of guys that Deanna was asking for it and always wanted to have sex with him.  He made her sound desperate.  He made it all sound like a joke.  Each day since then, she sees their stares in the hall at school.  People whisper around her.  She hasn’t dated since then.

Her home life is complicated as well.  Her brother and his wife moved into the basement after she got pregnant right out of high school.  They both have low paying jobs and are struggling to make it.  Regret is written all over their faces.  He father is cruel to her and her mother is so busy trying to make ends meet that she doesn’t have time to spend with Deanna.  Her father looks like her regrets ever having Deanna.

Thank goodness for her friends.  It used to just be Deanna and Jason, her neighbor.  They would hang out.  It was an easy going friendship.  Then Lee came along.  She was so sweet and didn’t care about the rumors about Deanna.  Before long Lee and Jason started dating.  At that moment, Deanna realized that she had always liked Jason.  She feels rejected, wondering: Did Jason not ask me out because of all those rumors?  While Lee is out of town, Deanna confronts Jason and kisses him.  Instantly their relationship changes and Deanna knows they can’t be together.  He tells Lee what happened and she forgives Deanna.  But, it takes Deanna a few months to face her again.

In the middle of everything she gets a job and finds her ex Tommy working there.  At first she thinks she can’t handle being around him, but she takes the job anyway.  Eventually, she confronts him and tells him he was a jerk for spreading all those rumors about her.  He looks shocked…like it never occurred to him that it bothered her so much.  A couple of days later he apologizes.  Soon after that she forgives him.  Already her life is beginning to change and Deanna learns that life is what you make it.   It can be difficult, but no one said life would be easy.

Who hasn’t made mistakes?  Who doesn’t wish they could take back some stupid thing they did when they were younger?  I can totally relate to the frustrating feeling of rumors following you.  Teenagers can be so cruel sometimes.  I think junior high was probably the worst time in my life.  I was new at school.  People talked about me because I was different.  I just wanted to get out of the small closed minded town I lived in…just like Deanna.  I couldn’t see what was on the horizon for me five or ten years down the road.  At times I felt hopeless…just like Deanna.  I think teens will strongly relate to this novel, as I know I have.