New review for Ideal High...

Ideal High, a YA novel, by Valerie Ipson. Book review by Pam Eaton.

“There’s no way Taryn’s taking Blake’s place as president of the student body. As soon as the memorial for him and six of their friends is over, she’s resigning as VP. Really. Except people say the fire was no accident. (She says it’s way too easy to blame someone who’s dead.) When Taryn reads the writing on the wall, literally, the bathroom wall, she knows what it means. To get to the truth she has to come out from under her paisley comforter. But, seriously, what stage of grief says Taryn has to be the one to fix what’s wrong at Ideal High? Maybe she’s the one who’s broken.”

Wow. The start of the book is at the memorial for the six friends of Taryn. And that in it’s self has a big impact. I was lucky enough that no one died while I was in high school. I can’t image if six of my friends died in a fire.

I really enjoyed this book though. I liked how Valerie Ipson took a character that faced a horrible tragedy and perseveres. What the summary of this book doesn’t mention is that bullying is a big factor in the story. And that struck a chord with me. I wasn’t really bullied a lot in school, but there were two instances in my life that stick with me from it. When I was in high school, a bunch of girls decided to mash my car windows in and slash my tires. Along with sending me very mean texts. This was all over because I talked to a guy one of the girls was dating. That’s all. But the escalation of it, to this day surprises me. I loved how Ipson tackled this problem in the book, how she took her main character that had an idea for her school and acted on it with the help of others. The story really drew me in and was well written. I really recommend reading Ideal High. Even though it’s YA, I think parents should read it too. We were given a copy of Ideal High in exchange for an honest review.

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