Teaser: The Stone Girl

The Stone Girl by Alyssa B. Sheinmel. Knopf Books for Younger Readers, an imprint of Random House. 2012. Reviewed from eArc from NetGalley.

The Stone Girl’s scheduled publication date is this summer, but I just finished reading it and I cannot wait to share some of my love here. Hence, a teaser for the full review!

Sethie Weiss is a high school senior at a private all girls school in Manhattan. Outside, her life looks perfect. Inside, she is a “stone girl,” descending further and further into self destructive behaviours.

She looks at the thin girls around her and wishes she was as easily thin as they are: “Tomorrow, perhaps she will wake up the kind of girl who doesn’t get hungry for a snack after school, who simply forgets to eat lunch because she is so busy. Tomorrow she might wake up thinner than she woke up today.”

There is also humor, biting, sarcastic, and arrogant: “‘They’re amazing pants,’ [the saleswoman] says. ‘Very unique.’ Walking behind her, Sethie and Janey exchange a smile. They are girls who know that something cannot be very unique, and the sound of the error is like nails on a chalkboard to them. And no matter how grateful they are, later, when the saleswoman finds the pants in Janey’s size, they both believe that this separates her from them. Because they know something cannot be very unique, they will never be saleswomen at Saks.”

My review will be posted in August, closer to the publication date!

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