When She Was Good - Hardcover

Mazer, Norma Fox

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0590135066 ISBN 13: 9780590135061

Publisher: Scholastic, 1997

Synopsis

In a survivor tale about how hope outlives brutality, young Em Thurkill struggles to maintain her dreams in a life of almost unbearable pain as the victim of sibling abuse.

About this title

Review

*"[The] language is at once fierce and unpretentious".-- Booklist, starred review

From the Publisher

Rave reviews greet Mazer's astonishing new novel
*Although 17-year-old Em knows she has been
liberated by her sister's unexpected death, the idea of
facing life alone is terrifying. How can she survive
without fat, crazy Pamela in multiple hats and sweaters,
telling her what to do and how to think and feel? With
recollections of Pamela's booming voice and foul mouth
echoing in her head, Em sifts through her years with her
overbearing, needy sister, recalling how Pamela physically
abused her and gradually stripped her of her self-esteem.
This isn't the first time Mazer has dealt with relationships between sisters in their teens and twenties:
her YA novel THREE SISTERS (1986) is still in print in paperback.
But this book is more intricately structured and far
more brutal. Its language is at once fierce and unpretentious,
and it has greater emotional depth than most
YA novels, including Mazer's own. Its haunting themes
speak right to older teens and the book can easily
be used as a springboard to adult novels such as
Kay Gibons' poignant ELLEN FOSTER (1987) in which
a young girl struggles to maintain her self esteem
in the face of abuse, and Janine Boissard's books about
sisters. That Em ultimately learns she posesses the
strength to overcome her past is a powerful testament to
the resiliencey of the human spirit.
Starred Review, Booklist Septmber 1, 1997

*From the onset of this heart-wrenching novel, it is evident
that Mazer (After the Rain) thoroughly understands and
empathizes with her impoverished narrator, Em, the
younger Thurkill daughter. Em eloquently expresses her
belief in an elusive happiness: "I sensed this phantom
thing, happiness, as something real--like a fabulous
painting or statue that existed in the world, hidden from
me now, but only waiting for me to come upon it." while
taking blows from her older sister, Pamela, whose
sullenness explodes into fits of rage and violence. When
Pamela and Em are forced to flee from their run-down
trailer, they move to the city where life remains grim for
14-year old Em. She has trouble holding onto a job while
caring for her sister, and continues to be "crazy" Pamela's
target for attack. Four years later, Em is shocked when
Pamela dies unexpectedly ("I didn't believe Pamela would
ever die. She was too big, too mad, too furious for
anything so shabby and easy as death"), and gingerly takes
her first steps towards liberation. The author poetically
evokes a poignant, honest image of rebirth and self-
reliance. Em edges toward friendship with younger
children and a woman named Louise, working up the
courage just to smile or say hello; begins a garden in a
vacant lot, hauling heavy jugs of water and weeding it
daily; and after an exhaustive search, finds a job with a
caring and gentle boss. Readers who wince at the heroine's
abuse and rejection will find solace in her slow-but-steady
emergence into a kinder world.
Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, 7/21/97

Edition details

• Publisher: Scholastic
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0590135066
• ISBN 13: 9780590135061
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 228