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A review by themaddiest
If I Tell by Janet Gurtler
3.0
Jasmine Evans’ life has always been fairly complicated. As a biracial girl growing up in a very white town, she’s never quite fit. The product of a one-night stand between her white mother (who was 17 at the time) and her absent, black father, Jasmine has never really understood who she is. Despite all this, Jasmine has been surviving. When she sees her mom’s boyfriend making out with her best friend at a party, Jasmine feels torn: where does she draw the line?
Janet Gurtler’s If I Tell has a lot of good things going for it. Good dialogue, strong secondary characters, and some real emotional turmoil help to propel the book’s story. The exploration of what it means to be biracial in a mostly-white community is important and sensitively handled. However, the problematic aspects weigh down an interesting premise.
The problem starts with the fact that Jasmine’s anger–at her mother, at her mother’s boyfriend, and at her best friend–never feels completely authentic. Everything the reader knows about Jasmine indicates that before she witnessed the drunken kiss between Simon (the boyfriend) and her best friend, she’s was a well-adjusted kid with a pretty good life. So the concept that her anger drives the majority of the plot and story never completely works. The central conflict of the book doesn’t have enough depth to it to justify what Jasmine does or feels. Because of this, the sympathy of the reader is long gone by the time Jasmine comes to grips with her feelings.
That being said, there are still good things to be found in the pages of Gurtler’s book. Strong, believable dialogue helps elevate this novel from a string of nearly-identical issue books being published for teens. Having the main character gently probe the meaning of her identity and what role race plays in her every day life adds a nice complexity to a fairly simple story. Strong characterization overall makes up for the flimsy plot.
Recommended for fans of contemporary YA, but with reservations. There’s more promise here than actual delivery. Sophisticated readers are likely to become frustrated with Jasmine’s erratic behavior.
If I Tell by Janet Gurtler. Sourcebooks Fire: 2011. Electronic galley accepted for review via Netgalley.
Janet Gurtler’s If I Tell has a lot of good things going for it. Good dialogue, strong secondary characters, and some real emotional turmoil help to propel the book’s story. The exploration of what it means to be biracial in a mostly-white community is important and sensitively handled. However, the problematic aspects weigh down an interesting premise.
The problem starts with the fact that Jasmine’s anger–at her mother, at her mother’s boyfriend, and at her best friend–never feels completely authentic. Everything the reader knows about Jasmine indicates that before she witnessed the drunken kiss between Simon (the boyfriend) and her best friend, she’s was a well-adjusted kid with a pretty good life. So the concept that her anger drives the majority of the plot and story never completely works. The central conflict of the book doesn’t have enough depth to it to justify what Jasmine does or feels. Because of this, the sympathy of the reader is long gone by the time Jasmine comes to grips with her feelings.
That being said, there are still good things to be found in the pages of Gurtler’s book. Strong, believable dialogue helps elevate this novel from a string of nearly-identical issue books being published for teens. Having the main character gently probe the meaning of her identity and what role race plays in her every day life adds a nice complexity to a fairly simple story. Strong characterization overall makes up for the flimsy plot.
Recommended for fans of contemporary YA, but with reservations. There’s more promise here than actual delivery. Sophisticated readers are likely to become frustrated with Jasmine’s erratic behavior.
If I Tell by Janet Gurtler. Sourcebooks Fire: 2011. Electronic galley accepted for review via Netgalley.