Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr was another contender for the National Book Award this year. It’s the story of a girl (heh) who has a past. A girl with a bad past.

At the young age of 13, Deanna is caught by her father having sex in a car with her brother’s best friend. After this event her family life seems to disintegrate. Her father seems to have lost respect for her and becomes distant. This causes Deanna to become depressed. She deeply misses the relationship she had with her dad before the unfortunate event. Two years later Deanna is wiser and hardened. She has become the class “slut” (even though she doesn’t sleep around) and only has two real friends.

She decides she needs to find a job so that she can save money to help her brother, girlfriend, and baby move out of their parent’s basement. Her plan is to move out with them so that she can escape the emotionally oppressive relationship she has with her father. She finds a suitable job at a pizza joint, only to find that she will be working with Tommy, the guy she had sex with. Emotions are stirred, as you can imagine.

I really liked this book. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was good. The writing was very good. The story was interesting. There were not any life-changes at the end, but things were tied up pretty nicely. The character development was excellent. I really felt drawn into Deanna’s thoughts and really felt what she was going through, the unfairness of it all. Her situation and feelings about it are complicated, as it is in life.