Sea of Tears

Gr 5–7—Jasmine's parents uproot her from her London home and relocate the family to their native Barbados, where the 12-year-old's negative attitude festers in the face of anti-British discrimination. Benjamin gives interesting details about life in a part of the world about which few American teens are aware and sheds light on British and Bajan identity politics. She uses British expressions and slang throughout. Jasmine herself is a thoroughly unlikable, one-dimensional character with very little common sense and only one ill-formed motivation, to get back to London. Her high-tension forays into adventure (e.g., running away and almost getting pulled in by a pimp, stealing a boat to get away from Barbados) break up the monotonous march of the long story. However, the stilted dialogue, awkward sentence constructions, inconsistencies, and inexplicably changing character perspectives contribute to a tedious read.—Rhona Campbell, Georgetown Day School, Washington, DC