Review: Juvie

Published Apr 15, 2015

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by Steve Watkins (Walker Books)

Sadie is the good daughter. She’s still at school but shoulders the responsibility of taking care of her highly dysfunctional family with her mother.

Sadie’s older sister, Carla, has made many mistakes throughout her short life, and Sadie finds herself having to protect her in order to shield her 3-year-old niece, Lulu, from the dramas of her mother’s life.

It all comes to a head when Sadie and Carla inadvertently get mixed up in a drug deal and are nabbed by the cops.

Thinking her punishment would only involve a sentence of community service, Sadie takes the blame so Carla, who got the sisters in trouble to begin with, can avoid jail time.

But on the day of sentencing, a different judge hearing her case opts for a harsher sentence and Sadie is sent to juvie for six months.

A decision to protect her sister, changes Sadie’s life forever.

Her dreams to go to university on a basketball scholarship lie in ruins at her feet, her boyfriend forsakes her, and she is torn away from her precious niece.

Sadie soon learns that juvie is no holiday camp. Not even her toothbrush is her own. She has to learn quickly to develop a hard shell and live by her wits. It’s a harsh place where the ever-glaring lights of her cell burn into her soul. The other girls in her section can be frightening and test her character in ways she never dreamed possible.

Juvie is a book about dysfunctional families, love and soldiering on.

There are no happy endings – Sadie learns life is about accepting your lot and owning your mistakes, surviving the day, and fighting for a better future.

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