Stained - Softcover

Jacobson, Jennifer Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1442485655 ISBN 13: 9781442485655

Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2012

Synopsis

Jocelyn has two boys in her life. And a priest.
Gabe has shared fourteen years of growing up next door. He's "a golden boy, an all-star." Yet now, in the spring of 1975, he's missing, disappeared on the brink of senior year at Weaver High. The whole town is set to go searching for him.
Benny has only been in New Hampshire since January, yet for Joss, he's the answer to a long-held prayer to be someone in somebody's eyes.
She loves them both.
Father Warren -- hair turning white and "kind of cool in his black clothes" -- is a link between the three of them. Or a wedge. Or a threat. For Joss, the priest holds power over her sense of herself; for Benny, power over his soul; for Gabe, so mysterious and alluring, he holds the power of destiny.
In a story shot with suspense, these four characters, and the lives of others they've touched in their small town, intermingle with unforgettable force.

About this title

Review:

It’s 1975 and the world is in the midst of the Sexual Revolution. Except not in Weaver Falls, where seventeen-year-old Jocelyn’s boyfriend Benny is wrestles with guilt over their passionate lovemaking in the woods. When Benny tells her he has bargained with God to swap their relationship in exchange for his dying mother’s life, and that popular Father Warren has counseled him that Jocelyn is of the devil, she feels that her soul is stained -- not a new emotion for her. Although as a small child she perceived the sunlit colors of the stained glass windows in St. Mary’s as God’s blessing, her mother’s divorce ten years ago has estranged both of them from the Catholic church and Jocelyn from the other kids at school. The relentless teasing all through her childhood of her same-age next-door neighbor Gabe has left her feeling even more rejected.

But now Gabe is missing, and the whole town turns out to search for him day after day, as his parents grieve, and Benny and Jocelyn’s breakup drags on agonizingly in the background. In alternate chapters, episodes show Gabe’s wild antics as a child, and his cruel tricks then despite Jocelyn’s devotion to him. After a near-rape when she was twelve, Jocelyn has kept her distance from Gabe, but now she can still draw on that invisible cord that used to bind them to follow clues to his whereabouts and try to comfort his shame that he has succumbed to Father Warren’s sexual demands.

Jennifer Richard Jacobson has built a story that treads delicately around a sensitive contemporary issue and explores first love and naïve belief with convincing characters. (Ages 14 and up) --Patty Campbell

About the Author:

Jennifer Richard Jacobson grew up in a family of storytellers. “My brothers,” she says, “had the ability to make us laugh until our bellies hurt. I wasn’t as hilarious, but I learned how to take the mishaps in life (especially the embarrassments) and turn them into a dramatic story.” Jennifer is the author of the middle grade novels Paper Things and Small as an Elephant, and the Andy Shane picture book series. She lives in Maine with her husband and Jack Russell terrier.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1442485655
• ISBN 13: 9781442485655
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208