THE TRUE MEANING OF CLEAVAGE
Mariah Fredericks
Atheneum
Fiction
ISBN: 0689850921
224 pages

• Read an Excerpt

Sari is in love with David, the most popular boy in school. Sometimes they meet after school to make out. Sari is beautiful, confident and has a smart, loyal best friend. Sari's life must be perfect, right?

Not quite.

The most popular boy in school has a serious girlfriend, who doesn't know that Sari and David are meeting in secret every Thursday. Sari's best friend, Jess, feels alienated and upset at Sari's mysterious behavior. Jess isn't ugly but she's not hot, and she prefers to spend her time reading science fiction and drawing rather than shopping. Sari is not interested in any of the things they used to do together and the two drift apart, pushed by Jess's anger at Sari's obsession with David. To make things even more complicated, Danny, the nerd who shares Jess's interest in science fiction, seems interested in Jess beyond a mutual love of books. As the year progresses, Jess is torn between loyalty to Sari and the need for power, to know something that the most popular girls in school don't.

Best friendships aren't perfect. Being pretty doesn't automatically get you everything you want or need. If you hate those stories where everything ends smoothly and everything is resolved in the end like nothing bad ever happened, you will love THE TRUE MEANING OF CLEAVAGE. This book is not graphic, but it uses Sari's sexual encounters as a perfect springboard for the strife in Sari and Jess's friendship. Endings are never clean and flawless, but they are satisfying and believable.

   --- Reviewed by Carlie Kraft

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