Sweet 16
Grade 8 Up–Teagan Phillips is throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars into a Sweet 16 party that she has been planning for a year. When she falls down the cellar stairs in search of some wine after she learns that her father canceled the open bar, she appears to have died. She is witness to her present, past, and future, but instead of three ghosts à laA Christmas Carol, Teagan has just one enigmatic female guide. She sees herself dispose of her relationship with Dad after her mother's death. She sees the plight of the waitress she fired. She also learns that her best friend and her boyfriend are secretly seeing one another. The figure in white turns out to be the future Teagan, who has died alone and unloved after obsessively repeated cosmetic surgery. In the inevitable reversal, she gets another chance; and, like Scrooge bestowing gifts on Bob Cratchit's family, she gives away her birthday loot to the poor. She bridges the gap with her father and reunites with the childhood friend whom she had dropped. Like a morality play, this one's all message and stock characters. This haute-couture name-dropping, prep-school princess makes for a totally unlikable character who alienates discerning readers too much for her redemption to work.–Suzanne Gordon, Richards Middle School, Lawrenceville, GACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.