A well-written and shockingly honest but very tough read for me. I just kept whip lashing between enraged and sad.
Seventeen year old Waldo is a high school senior with a dead end job and not much else. She lives with her single mother who is never actually home. She is starving- for clothes, sugar, love, attention, anything… for her creative writing teacher Mr. Korgy. He complements her unique voice and seems to see her in a way nobody else does. He is twice her age. We know where this story is going and cannot look away.
This book broke my heart. McCurdy made Waldo feel so real to me. She’s smart and more mature than her peers due to basically having to take care of herself, but she’s still just a kid. Waldo knows that getting involved with her teacher is a terrible idea but she is lonely enough to go through with it anyway. As you follow along with her you understand exactly why she is doing it. It is pretty explicit but that seemed real to me too. And Mr. Korgy, ugh! My own personal epilogue is that another character kicks him off a cliff and he bounces the whole way down.
Jennette McCurdy has a unique voice and I mean that in the most sincere and respectful way possible. I don’t know that I could say I enjoyed this book but I could not stop reading.
