Monday, September 04, 2006

Becoming Chloe, by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Jordy and Chloe meet in a basement in NYC, where Jordan is recovering from being beat up by his father and Chloe has just been gang raped. That rather dark and depressing beginning morphs into a cross-country road trip where the two of them catalog the beautiful and ugly parts of the world, discovering that there is a great deal of both out there.

I have very mixed feeling about this book. From the beginning, I really wanted to hate it as it has one of those horrible dark natures to it that seem to infect YA some books, but unlike so many other books I've read, it grew on me to an ending that really was a touching "unforgettable, redemptive story of beauty, pain, and unquenchable hope" (as the jacket blurb makes it out to be). So, if you start this book and want to put it down, give it a chance and see if it grows on you. It did for me.

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