LUSH
Natasha Friend
Scholastic Press
Fiction
ISBN-10: 043985346X
ISBN-13: 9780439853460
192 pages

It's not easy being 13, but when your father is a drunk, it's even harder. Just ask Sam. She can't even admit to her closest friends the true dynamics of her family. While Sam is dying to confide in someone about her family problems, she'd rather tell a stranger. That's why she starts the notes in the library.

Sam writes about all her worries concerning her father's alcoholism on scraps of paper and places the notes in between the pages of the town library's A History of Modern Whaling --- not a very popular check-out item. To her surprise, and delight, a secret pen pal responds with advice.

While at the library swapping notes with an anonymous pen pal, Sam also attracts the attention of an older boy, Drew. And she can't believe it when suddenly Drew is attracted to her. With her home life such a mess, Sam wants more than anything for this boy to like her whatever the cost, even if it means going to a party and drinking. When Sam finds herself acting like her father, she realizes that she has hit rock bottom.

LUSH is author Natasha Friend's follow-up to the highly acclaimed PERFECT. Like her former work, it cuts to the raw emotions of this teen girl living in a not-so-perfect situation. The language is simplistic yet touching and moving. Sam is real and so is her father's alcoholism. LUSH will be helpful to young people who are going through the same problem Sam faces. Friend also includes a list of important alcoholism resources for kids and teens at the end of the novel.

   --- Reviewed by Kristi Olson

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