The Princesses of Iowa

April 9, 2012
Weightier than its title suggests, this well-executed first novel introduces three A-list high school seniors whose perfect lives are in disarray after a drunk-driving accident the previous spring, “After the first cracks that split into canyons between us, sending me spinning across the ocean, Nikki down the Crazy Diet Rabbit Hole, and Lacey into the Land of Crippled Martyrdom.” Narrator Paige is “exiled” to Paris to work as an au pair while her image-conscious mother does damage control. Upon Paige’s return, her friends are cold, distant, and resentful that she was able to escape for the summer. Although the girls put on a front of normalcy once school begins, underlying tensions threaten to undermine their relationship. With the help of a new writing teacher, Paige embarks on a painful but enlightening journey of self-awareness. The conflicts Paige faces and the changes she undergoes are powerfully evoked. Backes addresses guilt, deceit, homophobia, loyalty, and the burden of keeping up appearances in a brutally believable high school setting as Paige recognizes the weaknesses of loved ones and her own imperfections. Ages 14–up. Agent: Becca Stumpf, Prospect Agency.

April 1, 2012

Gr 8 Up-"Everyone knows you're not supposed to drink and drive," begins Paige Sheridan. Before the accident, she had been leading the life of a popular, privileged teen. Then one night of partying brings her perfect world to a halt. She and her two best friends were extremely lucky, and only Lacey had any lasting injury, but they were separated for the summer as their parents' exercised damage control. Paige was sent off to Paris as an unpaid babysitter, a job that sounded more exciting than it really was. When she returns, her friends and boyfriend become distant and unfriendly, while her mother expects her to carry on being the homecoming queen she was meant to be. Paige takes refuge in her creative writing class, where Mr. Tremont, an inspiring teacher, and some outsider classmates encourage her to be herself. But who is Paige Sheridan? Is she just a princess? Or is she something more? In this debut novel, Backes takes Dead Poets Society and brings it into the age of Mean Girls. Her writing style is witty while still being relatable, and the themes of acceptance and identity will ring true to teens. One aspect of the narrative deals with Mr. Tremont's possible homosexuality in an extremely close-minded town. Though this issue becomes one of the larger plot points, it is never fully addressed or resolved. While this may be less satisfying to readers, it is a realistic outcome. Backes re-creates a world that most teens already live in, with the overarching message that anyone can become more than what others perceive them to be.-Kimberly Castle-Alberts, Stark County District Library, Canton, OH

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2012
In the wake of a drunk-driving accident, a girl destined to be homecoming queen finds herself wondering who she really is. Paige was hustled off to France for the summer by her parents to get over the shame. When she gets back to school in the fall, it's hard to fall back into sync with her best friends, also in the accident. Worse, her boyfriend, though he swears he still loves her and seems to like making out with her, is spending an awful lot of time with one of them. Paige is surprised to find that the best class of the day is creative writing, where she makes friends with a couple of kids on the fringe. Through writing exercises, she revisits the night of the accident and interrogates herself--and she doesn't always like what she learns. Paige's journey out of the Mean Girls IT group won't shock readers, but it unfolds with pleasingly realistic hesitations, as does her relationship with the new, uncool boy. Backes has more trouble with her secondary characters; while some feel very real, others never depart from stereotype. Subplots involving homophobic attacks on the writing teacher, Paige's difficult relationship with her social-climbing mother and an anti-drunk-driving campaign weave in and out with sometimes-faltering success, particularly the last. But the writing is fluid, Paige is a likably unreliable narrator and the high-school setting is believably sordid. A mostly solid, if a little too long, high-school drama. (Fiction. 14 & up)

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July 1, 2012
Paige returns to Iowa for her senior year after having been sent away for the summer following her drunk-driving accident. Many things have changed, including Paige herself and her fractured friendships, stressed by the arrival of a new creative writing teacher. The talkative prose covers too many conflictspeer pressure, class, homophobia, etc.but both the protagonist and her small town are believably portrayed.

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)