Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Dede

Joy School is about a 12 year old girl named Katie, and her new life in the new town she moved to after her mothers death.  She is not very close with her father and she begins making friends- some good, some not so good.  When she meets a 23 year old man named Jimmy and "falls in love."  I had a lot of issues with this book - one - the jacket says that her dad is abusive and it doesn't show in the book.  Second the book bounces around between all the secondary characters that I would get confused and have to rethink what I had just read.  She finds a good friend - Diane, a bad friend - Taylor, and falls in love with Jimmy who is married.  Another biggie in my book is that she lies to Jimmy and tells him she is 15, not 12 going on 13.  I cringed.  The book was just not thought out, I didn't care for any of the characters and Katie came off as pretty whiny.  She had good morals, though that is about the only good thing I can say about this book.