It's pretty straight-forward, actually. If you're a bad girl, you're gonna get in trouble. And if you keep getting in trouble, you'll get kicked out of school. And when you get kicked out of school, there's only one place for you to go: Hidden Oak aka the School for Dangerous Girls.
Hidden Oak. Doesn't that sound like a summer camp? Unfortunately for Angela and her classmates, there is nothing quaint about Hidden Oak. It's the last chance for all the girls who attend, and they have one month to prove to the administration that they're reformable. Girls who have a spark of change are "gold thread" and girls who are too rebellious and bad become "purple thread". Gold thread girls live a normal-ish reform school life... but the purple thread girls are locked in the tunnels under the school and left to Lord of the Flies-esque self-ruling.
Angela isn't really a bad kid... she has made some mistakes, responded to abuses inflicted upon her at a young age, and is unendlingly loyal. It's this loyalty combined with a strong stubborn streak that gets her thrown from gold to purple thread... and when she is left in a life or death situation, she has to make tough choices or die trying.
I have to admit this book was pretty unrealistic. Still, it was a page turner. I didn't love it, but found myself compelled to finish it quickly because of Angela's sassy, honest voice. Teen girls will like this book, especially those who want to read about the "bad girl" or who enjoyed Todd Strasser's Boot Camp.
2 comments:
Have to agree on several issues-- it's a page turner, the students will love it, and yeah, it's not realistic. Maybe it reminded me of Down a Dark Hall a tiny bit-- it would never happen, but reading about it was fun.
I lovelovelove this book <3
It reminded me that not all books are the kind that you have to force yourself to read (that's apparently just a teacher assignment thing)
The pages practically turned themselves and it made me start reading a book a week again.
Plus the author's knowledge of BPD was incredible for such a hard to understand illness. I diagnosed the main character by page 12! He's a great writer :)
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