Rowena’s review of Keep Holding On by Susane Colasanti.
Main Character: Noelle
Love Interest: Julian
Series: None
Author: Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads
A romantic and empowering book about bullying.
Noelle’s life is all about survival. Even her best friend doesn’t know how much she gets bullied, or the ways her mom neglects her. Noelle’s kept so much about her life a secret for so long that when her longtime crush Julian Porter starts paying attention to her, she’s terrified. Surely it’s safer to stay hidden than to risk the pain of a broken heart. But when the antagonism of her classmates takes a dramatic turn, Noelle realizes it’s time to stand up for herself—and for the love that keeps her holding on.
I heart Susane Colasanti’s books. They always take me to my happy place and this book was no different. I mean, this book was so full of things that hurt my heart but the way that Colasanti wrote it, made me love the characters and anxious for things to get better for them.
In this book, we meet Noelle. Noelle is a junior in high school and she gets bullied on a constant basis at school. She’s one of the poor kids at school so she gets teased about her clothes and things like that and she pissed off some kids back in the day (doing things that were out of her control, I thought) and they torment her day in and day out when she’s at school. Noelle’s not a bad kid, she’s quiet and she keeps to herself for the most part and she does have a friend. She just doesn’t have the same lunch period as her best friend Sherae and she has the same lunch period as her tormentors.
Throughout this entire book, my heart hurt for Noelle. I got so angry at the adults mentioned in the book who saw her getting bullied and never bothered to step in and help her. What the heck could kids do to them that made them keep mum about the bullying? Why wouldn’t they step up and stop the bullying? Pissed me right off.
I thought Colasanti did such a great job of showing us the growth in Noelle over the course of the book. When we first meet her, she was a shadow of the person that she was in the end and I really enjoyed seeing the transformation. I loved the people that came into her life and I loved her best friend. I loved Simon and I loved Sherae and I LOVED Julian. On the other hand, I hated Matt, I hated her Mom and I hated Warner, Audrey and Carly. This book touches on bullying in high school and even though it was a tough theme to read through at times, it was worth reading to the end.
It’s really weird to me that I don’t remember anyone in my high school that was bullied like this. I mean, I know that it happens but I’ve never witnessed it for myself. When I was in school, people were made fun of and talked about behind their backs but nobody was bullied like this. So reading these kinds of stories really puts me in these kids shoes and I’m glad that I’ve never gone through this but at the same time, my heart goes out to the kids being bullied all over the world. Nobody deserves to be treated the way that Noelle was treated and I loved that she found a support system that helped her through the tough times.
This book touches on low self esteem and bullying and hard issues that teens face everyday and I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone, really. I really enjoyed this book and this is right up there as one of my favorites by Colasanti. Everyone should definitely read this one.
..and that’s your scoop!
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Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com
I have this book and can’t wait to read it soon!
Diana
I have this book and can’t wait to read it soon!
Diana
I actually I’m really looking forward to reading this book. I can’t remember if I have tried this author before but I keep hearing good things about the book so I hope to give it a try soon.
I think perhaps you don’t perceive it because of the age? But seriously, kids have become meaner and meaner 🙁
I’m not sure whether I’ll pick this one up. Sounds like really depressing 🙁
@Diana: Let me know what you think about it when you read it. I enjoyed it.
@Alex: This author is hit or miss for some readers but I’ve liked a lot of her books so she’s made her way onto my auto-buy list. This was a good addition to her backlist.
@Nath: Yeah, this book was pretty depressing in the sense that my heart hurt for what Noelle went through but she had a good support system and in the end, I was really happy with the way things turned out for her.