HARLEY LIKE A PERSON by Cat Bauer

HARLEY LIKE A PERSON
Cat Bauer
Winslow Press
Young Adult
ISBN: 1890817481

Fourteen-year-old Harley Columba is sure that she's adopted. First of all, she has nothing at all in common with her parents. You might say, what teenager does? But Harley thinks she has physical proof when she finds a harlequin doll hidden in her attic. The note attached indicates that it was a gift from her father --- her real father. But Harley never had much doubt that the verbally violent, often drunk, always distant Roger was not her dad. To make matters worse, neither parent can understand Harley's love for poetry and art --- the two things that keep her sane. In every way Harley feels like a stranger, an alien dropped out of the sky and left to fend for herself in her parent's battle ravaged house. HARLEY LIKE A PERSON follows the New Jersey born girl through this especially tumultuous time of her life.

Harley doesn't always deal with her problems in the best way --- she runs away, hides under her bed, sneaks out of her house, and soon finds herself hanging around a dangerous crowd. She falls in and out of love, settling into the precarious position as the girlfriend of a sexy bad boy. Although she really cares for him and basks in this new and exciting aura, Harley knows not everything she's doing is for the best. Her grades are slipping, her attitude is getting her in trouble, and ultimately she risks losing her closest friend. But as Roger's violence and her mother's bitterness escalate, Harley becomes more and more a stranger to herself.

Pushed to the edge, Harley experiments with drugs and alcohol, and when she sometimes gets caught, she further angers and distances herself from her family. Determined to find the mysterious buyer of the harlequin doll, Harley sets off on a mission that threatens to expose the truth and change the dynamic of her life irrevocably. With art on her side, Harley bursts out into the world outside her small suburban town, ready to face the truth…she thinks. Follow her on this very realistic journey of self-discovery and find out for yourself what HARLEY LIKE A PERSON is really like. My bet is that you'll feel as though you already know her --- I certainly did.

--- Reviewed by Dana Schwartz