Review: Tease by Amanda Maciel

Title: Tease

Author: Amanda Maciel

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Publication Date: 4.29.2014

Pages: 336

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Issues, Bullying

Series: No

Source: ARC from ALA MW

Rating: 5 Stars

Summary (from Goodreads):

Emma Putnam is dead, and it's all Sara Wharton's fault.

At least, that's what everyone seems to think. Sara, along with her best friend and three other classmates, has been criminally charged for the bullying and harassment that led to Emma's shocking suicide. Now Sara is the one who's ostracized, already guilty according to her peers, the community, and the media.

During the summer before her senior year, in between meetings with lawyers and a court-recommended therapist, Sara is forced to reflect on the events that brought her to this moment—and ultimately consider her role in an undeniable tragedy. And she'll have to find a way to move forward, even when it feels like her own life is over.

In this powerful debut novel inspired by real-life events, Amanda Maciel weaves a narrative of high school life as complex and heartbreaking as it is familiar: a story of everyday jealousies and resentments, misunderstandings and desires. Tease is a thought-provoking must-read that will haunt readers long after the last page.

Review:

I am fully expecting to be in the minority when it comes to my thoughts on this book, but I loved it. I don’t know that most seasoned authors would try to tackle this aspect of bullying, let alone a debut author, but Amanda Maciel utterly blew me away with TEASE.

Let’s talk about Sara, our narrator. Sara is unapologetic and truly doesn’t see what she did was wrong for the majority of this book. She blames Emma for killing herself, Emma’s parents for not watching out for Emma, Brielle for being the dominant friend she had to please … Emma was an annoying, whiner who truly could not see what she did wrong.

I will admit that this floored me. I wanted to shake her. How did she not see that what she and Brielle were doing to Emma was cruel and bullying? It took me half a book to wrap my head around Sara, and even then I frequently had to set this book down for a day or so because she left me fuming with her ignorance and aloofness. It took me a couple weeks to read this book. Weeks.

But here’s where I finally figured Sara out and it both humbled and sobered me: We’re all Sara. Sara didn’t do or say anything that we haven’t. I could be all pious and stand on my soapbox and say what a disgusting, disturbing book this is because the main character feels no remorse for what she did, but I challenge any of you to read this and not find yourself in Sara.

How many times have you been with your girlfriends and laughed about another girl? Gone out with coworkers and bashed another girl in the office? How many of you have been cheated on and blamed the other woman instead of your guy? Every time you’ve thought, muttered, whispered or shouted, “whore” “bitch” “slut” “skank” or any other colorful insult (that admittedly flies off my lips with way too much ease), you are Sara. You are a bully.

Yes, Sara does go through a shift of her personality and while she spends the vast majority of the book in an ignorant, bitter haze, she does start to come out of it. I love that Maciel told it from Sara’s point of view. We’ve all seen the newspaper articles, People magazines, news blasts of these tragic suicides brought about from bullying. But it always bothered me that as much as people spouted the evils of bullying, they bullied and condemned the bullies. Somehow two wrongs made a right, and that never sat with me.

This book is going to be very polarizing. You will love it or hate it, but I beg of you to see it for what it is and see the power and raw beauty in what Maciel says. It takes a remarkable author to make me love a book and hate a main character, but that was the line Maciel walked for the bulk of this book with me. It is incredibly powerful and moving.

Buy: Amazon