Margaret Peterson Haddix

In the journal she is keeping for English class, sixteen-year-old Tish chronicles the changes in her life when her abusive father returns home after a two-year absence.

Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey

Reyna Wren

This book was not exactly bad, but it suffered from what I refer to as "V.A.S. -- Visible Author Syndrome". The storyline was well paced and had interesting developments, the characters were interesting enough, but you could see the author too much in her work. I understand that the book itself is a bit old not, but I'm not sure if the story was meant to be placed in a different time period --and if it was, would it have killed the author to add the year to the dates before the entries?. Everything from the pop culture references to the hair styles and jargon were old and tired. It wasn't vintage in a way that added anything to the story, or old because it allowed for anything specific to take place, the whole novel simply felt outdated. The protagonist called someone a "brain" at one point, mentions how cool it is to fluff your hair about a thousand times, and mentions barely getting three dollars an hour, which even despite the minimum wage issues of our day, is extremely low. And anyway, if a book is truly well written, it shouldn't be out of date after not even 50 years. And besides that, it felt like reading a pamphlet for bad home situations. There wasn't anything truly unique or revolutionary about it, and the main character felt really stiff and fake. I believed in her at first, but then her narrative seemed to slip into "and this is what I'm feeling! I feel that way because of this! Isn't it neat that I can understand my motives?" I really really wanted the author to do some showing instead of telling here. It may have been the format that made it weaker, the journal entries not leaning themselves well towards a proper description of most things, but the whole story simply felt like it could have been written better.
It was kind of really unrealistic that the teacher could have skimmed the entries without reading them at all. She should have been looking to see if the kids were okay, that's basic Teacher 101.
And, there should have been some sort of list of resources in the book to help kids who were reading it and saw themselves in the situations. The most that it seemed to do was encourage such kids to tell a teacher, and while that may help in some cases, it also may not help some kids who really need help. 
Lastly, the whole novel reminded me of Eleanor and Park but I enjoyed that book much more.

Things are so bad, I feel like I'm going to explode if I don't do something... Everyone has to keep a journal in Mrs. Dunphrey's English class, but the teacher has promised she won't read any entry marked "Do not read this." It's the kind of assignment Tish Bonner, one of the girls with big hair who sit in the back row, usually wouldn't take very seriously. But right now, Tish desperately needs someone to talk to, even if it's only a notebook she doesn't dare let anyone read. As Tish's life spins out of control, the entries in her journal become more and more private...and dangerous. Is she risking everything that matters to her by putting the truth on paper? And is she risking more by keeping silent?

Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey

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