full-ride

full-ride
YA Fiction

Can you imagine having to leave home, cut ties with
friends...that is former friends, and start all over in a new town
with an assumed identity. Oh, yeah, and you're losing touch with one
parent for years at least. That's the plight of Becca, protagonist of
Margaret Peterson Haddix's full-ride. Her father has been convicted
of embezzling a lot of money. He also has antagonized a powerful
company with less than squeaky clean ethics. Aided by their lawyer,
Becca and her mother have obtained documents to start all over. They
are admonished to never reveal a shred of their former existence.
In her former life Becca was not that great of a student. But
in her new milieu there's not much else to do but study. Friends must
be only seen at school and kept at arms length. Telling the wrong
person any fragment of the truth could be a fatal error. Social media
are far too risky so Facebook is decidedly not an option. She starts
her senior year as one of her school's top scholars with college
ambitions filling her head.
Becca's mother tells her she can't apply for financial aid. Too
many chances for the wrong people tracking them down. What can she
do? The college she yearns to get into is quite pricey, nothing she
can afford without an awful lot of help...help that might come at a
terrible cost.
On a personal note, my Amber now has her masters degree. Her hooding
was last Friday and her graduation ceremony was the next day. I'm
very proud of her.
A great big shout out goes out to Amber and her fellow graduates.
Julia Emily Hathaway




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