TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT ME

This coming-of-age story chronicles the world of Jamie, an Australian teenager of Lebanese Muslim descent, who struggles with peer pressure and racism at school and with her widowed father’s rules at home. At the beginning of the book, Rebecca Macauley’s characterization of teenage conversation is too loud and brash. She soon settles into the material, however, and delivers an engaging, energized performance, easily handling a multitude of characters of different ethnic backgrounds, social classes, and ages. The personalities of Jamie’s hang-loose 18-year-old brother, her tired immigrant father, who speaks in broken English, and her rhetoric-spouting revolutionary sister sound authentic. The listener becomes a part of the family and roots for Jamie to discover a pride in her heritage and a belief in her own strength. M.H.N. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/ MAR 08]