Stained

by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

Book Overview

Jocelyn has two boys in her life. And a priest.
Gabe has shared fourteen years of growing up next door. He's "a golden boy, an all-star." Yet now, in the spring of 1975, he's missing, disappeared on the brink of senior year at Weaver High. The whole town is set to go searching for him.
Benny has only been in New Hampshire since January, yet for Joss, he's the answer to a long-held prayer to be someone in somebody's eyes.
She...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1442485655
• ISBN13: 9781442485655
• Release Date: October 2012
• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.1"
• Age Range: 14 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 9 to 12

Customer Reviews

Memories of You

I read a book called Stained. This was a really good book. It is about a girl, Jocelyn, who has been friends with a boy, Gabe, for fourteen years. One day he comes up missing. No one has seen him and no one has heard from him. Joss, Jocelyn, is having so many problems between Gabe's missing and her boyfriend Benny. Her boyfriend wants to break up with her. There are search parties going on for Gabe. Joss is just so confused right now. Joss goes out looking for him in the woods. She finds Gabe but he doesn't want anyone to know where he is. She goes back the next day, but he is gone. Through out the whole book, Joss goes back and forth through each chapter to tell about the past and why things are the way they are now. I really liked this book. I liked when Joss found Gabe out in those woods. I also liked that Joss and Benny got back together. I didn't like it that Gabe was gone. I would recommend this book to girls especially because it is more about a girl. People who like stories about girls who fall in love would love this book like I did. This book is for people who like stories that switch back and forth.

Eloquent, provocative, real

A quietly powerful, expertly told tale about an insecure teenage waitress and three men whose lives collide with hers. Seventeen-year-old Jocelyn McGuire is 17, a lapsed Catholic in a community of believers, working in a small-town New Hampshire diner in 1975. Her childhood friend-turned-nemesis, Gabe, is missing. Her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Benny, breaks up with her on the advice of the local priest, who holds a creepy sway over his male, teenaged parishioners. Jocelyn's narration alternates between flashbacks of her history with Gabe, a past that includes a childhood sexual assault, and a present tense account of his disappearance in which she actively puzzles out what's happened. The ending is triumphant with Jocelyn realizing she's not to blame for the way Gabe or Benny have treated her, and with her taking bold action against Father Warren - a move that puts this girl with the "stained soul" squarely on the side of angels. Excellent, finely wrought fiction that will feel relevant and immediate to today's readers.

Provocative and Powerful

I read STAINED in one sitting, and as soon as I finished it, I started it all over again! While the suspenseful story keeps you turning the pages (Where is Gabe? Why did he disappear?), Jacobson's unpretentious, pitch-perfect writing is making its way to a deep place within you - a place that connects you to all the characters in this book and keeps you thinking about them well after the last page is turned.

One of those books you can't put down

The characters in this book are completely haunting. Days after finishing the book, I find myself thinking about all of them--the experiences they shared, the decisions they made, the truths they learned. This is one of those books you can't put down, because even when you do, you keep thinking about it. A 5-star winner.