June 24, 2015

Wicked Review: Story of A Girl by Sara Zarr


Published: January 10, 2007
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Acquired: Borrowed Paperback




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.


No one really knows what happened to Deanna Lambert during that unfortunate time she was caught in the backseat of Tommy, her brother's best friend, except for her. She was cast as the slut when it fact she was only with Tommy for the rest of her miserable life and her father looks at her as if she's such a disappointment.

This book is painful, annoying, and sad. She misses spending time with her father whom she clearly loves so much. She reminisces the times when she was a kid that her father would smile at her and their family was a happy one.  Living in a small town doesn't really help Deanna's case as stories and rumors about her do around, some stories worse than the last. No girl should ever go through that emotional pain. Or better yet, no one should ever be talked about like that, boy or girl.

This book is not for the judgmental and narrow-minded. What happens in the latter part of the book might put some people of but I urge you to go through this book with an opened mind. I swear on all the peanut butter cookies I ate as I wrote this post, this book is well worth the read.


Sara Zarr is the acclaimed author of four novels for young adults: Story of a Girl (National Book Award Finalist), Sweethearts (Cybil Award Finalist), Once Was Lost (a Kirkus Best Book of 2009) and How to Save a Life. Her short fiction and essays have also appeared in Image, Hunger Mountain, and several anthologies. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with her husband, and online at www.sarazarr.com