Story of a Girl

by Sara Zarr

Book Overview

When she is caught in the backseat of a car with her older brother's best friend--Deanna Lambert's teenage life is changed forever. Struggling to overcome the lasting repercussions and the stifling role of "school slut," she longs to escape a life defined by her past. With subtle grace, complicated wisdom and striking emotion, Story of a Girl reminds us of our human capacity for resilience, epiphany and redemption.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316014532
• ISBN13: 9780316014533
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 14 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 9 to 12

Customer Reviews

Loved this

I read Sweethearts a few weeks ago and loved it, so I thought I'd check out this one as well. I gave that one a five star rating but I liked this one even better. At 13, Deanna is caught in the backseat of the car with a 17 year old by her father. Three years later, neither her dad nor the kids at her highschool have forgotten the incident and she is branded the school skank. Even worse, she can't forget the incident or forgive herself. This story touched me deeply--we all know what it's like to do something stupid and how hard it is to get past it. I was draw right in to the character and her story and could not put this book down. Zarr is a wonderful YA writer. I highly recommend this book.

An honest book with a lot of heart

This story grabbed me from page one. What drew me in were the interesting setting and true-to-life characters-- not just the teenage girl narrating the book, but her three-dimensional friends and coworkers and family, all with their own stories and heartaches and flaws. The story seems simple: A girl in a small working-class town near San Francisco cannot leave her bad reputation behind and cannot get her father's forgiveness. Or can she? But the story is not really simple, because the people in it are so complicated. By writing with honesty and truth and heart, Zarr made me feel deeply about all the characters and about how their stories would resolve.

Forgiveness and the Average Girl

Imagine you made a mistake as a teenager. A big mistake. Now imagine you made this mistake in a small town when you were thirteen years old. Sara Zarr's moving "Story of a Girl" tells just this tale from the point of view of sixteen-year-old Deanna Lambert. At age 13, Deanna was caught "in the act" with her older brother's best friend. By her father. Oh, and Deanna and the boy were in a parked car. Small towns being what they are, it takes only a day for Deanna's story to spread throughout Pacifica. From that moment on Deanna is the "school sl*t" (despite the fact she's avoided boys since the incident) and at home life isn't much better. Dad--nearly three years later--has yet to recover from finding his daughter in a car with a seventeen-year-old boy and he barely talks to Deanna. "Story of a Girl" opens on the final day of Deanna's sophomore year. She's feeling stuck--in her small town, in her reputation, and in her family. Zarr does a great job in showing the depression--economic and emotional--of a place down on its luck. Deanna's only job option is a rundown pizza joint. Her parents professional lives have been downsized--Mom working in a Mervyns and Dad in an auto parts supply store. Deanna's much-loved older brother lives in the basement with his new wife and baby. Deanna's brother and his wife work in the grocery store. With everyone working retail hours, no one is home at the same time and the house is sliding into disrepair. Deanna dreams of escape--of saving her money and moving out with her brother and his family. But escape is hard to come by when you are sixteen and live in a small town. Instead, Deanna must come to terms with what happened and forgive herself and others. Over the course of just this one summer, Deanna, with a few mistakes along the way, finds peace with herself, her reputation, her town, and her family. It's a beautiful gem of a book, one that will stay with me forever.

Courtesy of Teens Read Too

Have you ever done something that you wish you could take back? Something that changed your life forever? We've all been there. We've all done something that we regret. Just like all of us, Deanna was once caught doing something that she wasn't proud of. Unfortunately for her, it almost ruined her teen years. Just one dumb relationship, sprinkled with naiveté and trust, and suddenly Deanna finds herself with the vulgar label of the school whore. It wasn't what she'd asked for; she'd only ever been with one guy. But the stories just won't stop. Like a horrible rerun of a hated sitcom, it seems like everywhere she turns, Deanna is confronted with what she did one night in a boy's car--and the fact that her father caught her doing it. Deanna's story is touching, and the worst example of how one event can seem to define a person's life. But like the fighter she is, Deanna tries to move on and just live her life as normally as possible, with her two best friends and her family. But her family life isn't exactly picturesque. Her older brother, his wife Stacy, and their baby daughter are living in the basement. Her father is always arguing with Stacy, and Deanna thinks that he hates Stacy almost as much as he hates her since that fateful night when Deanna's life fell apart. Her mother loves her and tries so hard to give Deanna the care that she needs, but somehow it doesn't quite make up for the fact that their family is just barely scraping by. On top of all that, Deanna doesn't know if she'll ever make it out of Pacifica, a little dump of a town in the otherwise glamorous state of California. After sophomore year is over, Deanna is stuck at home all summer. To get out of the house and keep her busy, she gets her first job at a little local pizza parlor. There, she discovers that the same boy who came so close ruining her life three years earlier is now her co-worker. While she struggles to understand her feelings towards him, she is also struggling at home to live with the strange family arrangement and someday find a way out. Over the course of the summer, Deanna learns a lot about herself, her friends, and her family. By the time she returns to high school as a junior, she has a much better understanding of who she is, and that nobody else can define her. Sara Zarr did a wonderful job of creating Deanna, such a vulnerable character whose thoughts and actions are so believable. Never again will I judge somebody from a story I once heard about them, after seeing Deanna's account of just how much that can hurt. Reviewed by: Amber Gibson