Review: Story of a Girl

Author: Sara Zarr
Publish date: 2007
Source: purchased ebook
"When she is caught in the backseat of a car with her older brother's best friend--Deanna Lambert's teenage life is changed forever. Struggling to overcome the lasting repercussions and the stifling role of "school slut," she longs to escape a life defined by her past. With subtle grace, complicated wisdom and striking emotion, Story of a Girl reminds us of our human capacity for resilience, epiphany and redemption." (Goodreads)

A while ago, I won a copy of How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr, which was the first of her works that I read. I liked it a lot, especially the refreshingly different narrating voices, so when I saw that Story of a Girl was very cheap (maybe even free?) for the Kindle, I jumped at the chance to buy it. I read most of it on the plane returning from my vacation and liked and appreciated the quick read.

Deanna, the narrator of Story of a Girl, has one of the most realistic voices that I have read in contemporary YA. Deanna is a selfish girl who makes mistakes and wishes her life was different, but I appreciated that Sara Zarr chose to portray her this way. It was refreshing to read about a girl who didn't make the best choices and who didn't have the best home life. I felt bad for Deanna, yes, but at the same time knew that she was the one making crappy life choices sometimes.

This book is quite short, only 192 pages according to Goodreads, and it flew by on my Kindle. I like reading short books sometimes, but I feel like the ending came up way too abruptly and that everything was "resolved" too cleanly. Despite being short though, I did feel like Zarr included lots of details that made the story even more realistic, like things about Deanna's house or immediate family members. As I was reading, I found that I could think of people I knew that were similar to the characters from the book.

I'm not sure that I'd recommend this for everyone, but if you are looking for a quick contemporary read that's still pretty heavy hitting, give Story of a Girl a try!