True Believer
At 15, LaVaughn already knows that life is hard and that getting ahead  takes a strong mind and an even stronger will. Surrounded by poverty and  violence, she strives every day not to be just another inner-city statistic: "My  hope is strong like an athlete. Every morning when we walk through the metal  detectors to get into school ... it is an important day of dues-paying so I can  go to college and be out of here." Last year when she babysat for Jolly, a young  unwed mother, she saw firsthand how an unplanned pregnancy can diminish options.  So she ignores the boys, studies hard, and hopes it will all be enough to get  her into college. Then Jody moves back into the neighborhood. Once LaVaughn's  childhood friend, Jody is now "suddenly beautiful... He could be in movies the  way the parts of his face go together." If LaVaughn's choices were difficult  before Jody, now they're almost impossible. What LaVaughn doesn't know is that  Jody has difficult decisions of his own to make--decisions that could turn her  carefully ordered world upside down.The second novel in a proposed trilogy,True Believerpicks up where the  acclaimedMake Lemonadeleft off. Virginia Euwer Wolff's verse-prose is as sumptuous as ever, and her  descriptions of LaVaughn's day-to-day life and feelings are sympathetic and  achingly real. Readers will be eager to see where LaVaughn's choices take her in  Wolff's next installment. (Ages 13 and older)--Jennifer Hubert--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.