Angie McCullagh

{ Full review originally posted on my blog, PidginPea's Book Nook. }

Spectacle was a poignant flashback to my high school days. McCullagh perfectly captures the drama of it all, the constant struggles with friends and family, the feeling that life will never be more important than it is right now, the desire to sort yourself out and discover who you are in four short years.

I expected Emily's actual journey (the physical traveling) to find her real mother to take up more of the book; her desire to find her mother and her investigations into where she might be are definitely a big part of Emily's story, but the actual trip to find her is started and finished rather quickly. It is handled beautifully, though.

This book was a little difficult for me to read, and I think it was because it evokes all the uneasy feelings you have in high school so clearly. There is a sense of tension and confusion throughout the book, of things coming so close to going right, but then flipping at the last moment and going so wrong. The postscript was the perfect ending for it all. Reading it, I felt just like I did leaving high school: it didn't go exactly how I thought it would, but things are looking up from here.

Recommended for older YA readers, or those who would not be influenced by underage characters drinking, smoking, using drugs, or having sex.… (plus d'informations)