Annotation:
"When her big sister goes crazy, Cookie is left to make sense of a life she thought she understood."
Justification for rejection:
The book presents the reader with a series of short poems that demonstrate reality as perceived by a girl who witnesses her sister go through a psychotic episode. The poems are short, easily digestible, and definitely convey what the protagonist is experiencing. This book would be especially good for adolescents who are intimidated by large novels, as it is quite brief.
The book is engrossing, I would expect that many readers (young and old) will finish it in a single sitting. The verse style lends itself to being very fast paced, with exposition almost entirely removed. The style also helps the book to be driven almost entirely by emotion. Cookie's experiences are vivid, and definitely reflect the intensity required in a great YA novel.
Though the book is an excellent one, though I do not feel it reaches the level required for nomination. One major problem is that there seems to be really no major choices made by Cookie, or her sister. The experiences are really just that: experiences. They do not seem to be driven by the decisions made by the adolescents in the story. A second problem area is in the simplicity of language used. The story is told from Cookie's perspective, but the word choices seem to be dumbed-down from what an actual adolescent would use to express herself.
I found this to be a wonderful novel, and certainly worth the (short!) time investment. Due to a few key flaws, I do not believe it reaches the level warranting nomination.
Genre: Poetry or Verse Novel
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