ALA Booklist (Fri Nov 01 00:00:00 CST 2002)

In a series of intense prose poems, Rosenberg reveals the excitement and obsession of Stephanie's first love at 17, from her initial all-consuming happiness (Everything shines) through the tentative discovery (She thrills in her little power over him, though she doesn't understand the power; it's like having a magic wand that moves on its own volition) to the inevitable end (The ax, once fallen, loses its sharpness. Loses its terror). As time passes from autumn to winter to spring, she moves from giddiness to deep despair and then to renewal and transformation. Rosenberg's thoughtful choice of each word, each spare sentence, conveys the complexity and insecurity of mismatched love and also the struggle in a dysfunctional family, the fear of mental illness, and the manic hope and sadness of adolescence. There's a lot packed into this small poetic novel, but the whole is remarkably effective.

Horn Book (Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 2003)

Bountiful imagery and an intense focus characterize this sensuous if rarefied first-person romance. While the writing, shaped into prose-poem paragraphs, is more effective than the plotting, the evocation of Stephanie and Denny's affair is richly felt.

Kirkus Reviews

The story of a teen's sexual coming of age, twinned with her struggles with anorexia and depression, is distinguished from so many of its ilk by an exceptionally fine and precise prose style. Steph is 17, prey to all the usual doubts and insecurities of that age, but her situational angst is compounded by the difficulties attendant upon having a manic-depressive mother. On the days when her artist mother is up, it's "like coming into a room with party lights on where you had extended a hand forward, frightened, expecting to fall into pitch darkness," but in Steph's household, the yawning blackness seems to be much closer to the norm. Absent any real emotional security at home (her father is loving but ineffectual), when Steph begins a romance with the almost frighteningly intellectual Denny, she finds herself becoming more and more unhinged and alone. There is no hint of the cautionary in the deliberate examination of Steph's first sexual experiences—with the possible exception of an almost hilarious scene where she blurts out her fears of an impossible pregnancy to her grandfatherly history teacher—just a celebration of erotic awakening. This celebration, however, is followed almost immediately by a corresponding awareness of a growing emotional void as her relationship with Denny becomes increasingly joyless. The present-tense narration puts the reader almost claustrophobically into Steph's increasingly uncomfortable head; its tendency to refer to her much more as "the girl" than by name emphasizes her growing sense of alienation. Steph's tentative steps back to health are charted as deliberately as her decline. If some subplots—notably a most peculiar one involving Denny's unfaithful, alcoholic father—do not add to the narrative as a whole, neither do they materially detract. As noted, the story itself is not particularly new—but Rosenberg's ( We Wanted You , 2002, etc.) of telling it is beautifully, hauntingly effective. (Fiction. YA)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

This series of prose poems voicing the many woes of 17-year-old Stephanie teeters between art and melodrama. Third-person narrative calls on specific details and imagery ("All day she tastes his lips and breathes in the dark, musty old smell of his wool jacket") to evocatively convey the angst of the heroine, but the author squeezes too many complex issues into this slim volume to delve into any of them deeply. The development of Stephanie's character is overshadowed by the conflicts arising from unstable relationships with her mentally disturbed mother and Denny, her fellow-poet boyfriend. Stephanie plummets into depression as she battles irrational fears that she is pregnant (before they have sex), experiences a strangely intimate moment with her boyfriend's alcoholic father and discovers Denny is gay. Her only positive distraction comes with high-school wrestler Ben, who amuses himself by writing rude comments in students' poetry journals. Teens will no doubt find Stephanie's struggles darkly intriguing, but her self-despair eventually becomes tedious. At one point, she makes an elaborate list of the things that make her cry ("The smell of onions frying. Denny's worried face; his long scrawled letters. Long-distance telephone commercials"), but readers may be left to ponder what, if anything, makes her laugh. Ages 14-up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Oct.)

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up-At 17, but looking 14 with her slight, underdeveloped figure, Stephanie is "the girl" with long red hair who writes poetry and takes advanced classes at her Massachusetts high school. On the first day of her junior year, she attracts the eye of Denny Pistil, son of a rich attorney, who soon sweeps her off her feet with his interest in her poetry and his passionate attentions. He makes her wonder if she is "betraying- the world of her mother, the untouched, unscathed world of her self." Her mother works at home as a potter; her struggle with mental illness is an integral part of the family's life. Stephanie fears she may have inherited her mother's craziness in the guise of her own anxieties and her phobias about food. As the romance with Denny progresses, she fears pregnancy and feels a growing ambivalence about lovemaking. Denny begins to grow cold and distant, and Stephanie experiences symptoms of depression and anxiety when their relationship unravels over his nascent sexual attraction to a male friend. She recovers her hopefulness in the early spring as she begins a new friendship with Ben, who loves poetry and has the gift of putting her at ease. Rosenberg's sensitive writing is structured in complete sentences and paragraphs, like prose, with the figurative language and economy of word characteristic of poetry. Breaks are provided not by chapters, but by poem titles, to render a touching third-person narrative, enhanced by resonant images of nature and the changing seasons.-Susan W. Hunter, Riverside Middle School, Springfield, VT Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.