A review by lindagreen
The Whole Story of Half a Girl by Veera Hiranandani

3.0

As many others mentioned, I thought this was a YA title (weird marketing there) but its actually from the perspective of a 6th grader which changes the tone considerably. At its basic premise, it is the story of a girl who is half Jewish and half Indian who is struggling to find her identity at a new school. Due to her father's job loss she is launched into the world of public schools which is a confusing thing for her. Tying together both a race issue and a religious issue is daunting in one character...sort of doubling up the issues for any single character to face. I think this caused a bit of a "scattered" approach to the plot which would be hard for younger audiences to follow. The YA group would have no problem following along but the average middle schooler might have difficult with the bouncing of one topic to another. The character is highly relateable to any students who have ever moved or had to face being the "new kid" and will likely appeal to many of them. I did feel the public school was portrayed in a horrible light (I live in the south and no one goes around asking "are you black or white?" at the lunch table so I found this antiquated) and this lack of balance will turn off many students who are in the public school...if a student can't relate to the scenes in a book they won't want to read it and this is a prime example of that. A sideline plot involves the father's drop into depression and how that affects the family. Again, this could have been a book of its own and adding yet another thread to the pot didn't help the flow, pacing or focus of the book any. Overall, a good recommendation for those facing the "new kid in school" but otherwise probably not relateable enough for the average reader.

ARC Galley Proof