Dear Cassie

Gr 10 Up—Predictable, implausible, and deeply unpleasant are the terms that best describe this book. Cassie is a foul-mouthed, cigarette-craving, recent high-school graduate who, along with her two best friends, stole drugs from the boys who stood them up on Prom Night. She writes in diary form from a "sleep-away camp for criminals," the consequence of her criminal behavior. She is joined by two other girls (not her friends) and four boys, one of whom, predictably, becomes her love interest. Cassie's fellow campers are both stock characters and unlikely ones. The other two girls have not apparently been convicted of any crime-one is a mute, compulsive thief; the other a compulsive liar. One annoying boy constantly peppers his fellow campers with factoids about the wilderness. Ben, the love interest, is, of course, a good boy taking the blame for his beloved older brother. One can understand Cassie's use of the "f" word as a form of emotional armor (for an abortion, readers learn late in the book) but scatological references are so much a part of this novel that the "f" word is in the chapter headings. Despite the foul language, the novel has an antiabortion, antisex subtext that makes one wonder if it were intended to serve a hidden agenda.—Nina Sachs, Walker Memorial Library, Westbrook, ME