Review: This Girl Is Different by J.J. Johnson

 

This Girl Is Different by J.J. Johnson

Hardcover: 320 pages

Release date: April 1st, 2011

Publisher: Peachtree Publishers

Source: NetGalley

Goodreads Summary: Evie is different. Not just her upbringing-though that's certainly been unusual-but also her mindset. She's smart, independent, confident, opinionated, and ready to take on a new challenge: The Institution of School.

It doesn't take this homeschooled kid long to discover that high school is a whole new world, and not in the way she expected. It's also a social minefield, and Evie finds herself confronting new problems at every turn, failing to follow or even understand the rules, and proposing solutions that aren't welcome or accepted.

Not one to sit idly by, Evie sets out to make changes. Big changes. The movement she starts takes off, but before she realizes what's happening, her plan spirals out of control, forcing her to come to terms with a world she is only just beginning to comprehend.

JJ Johnson's powerful debut novel will enthrall readers as it challenges assumptions about friendship, rules, boundaries, and power.

Evie has never been in a school she was home schooled throughout her study because of her having a no permanent address, but this time she’ll make a difference. She’s going to be on a school. Before her first day she run into Rajas and Jacinda in a forest and became her friends. It never occurred to Evie that high school life in movie has never been that easy in real life… 

Evie Morningdew—yup that’s her last name-- is definitely a different girl that even she admit, she’s living in a Dome Home, not afraid of snakes and has a gift for having such a strong intelligence that sometimes she’s uncontrollable when it comes in speaking what she feels. I love how Evie start her first day in school, most girls would be on a shy mode and will try their best not to attract attention to other students but she’s different. She’s been on the top watch list of their gym teacher for using a cell during a break which she did not let to pass. She tries to write to the SG her side of the rules she think is not right and equal for the students. Jacinda and Rajas plays a big part of Evie’s new life. Jacinda became her girl companion in the story, they had great times together even there’s a bit of things they don’t both agree and had a fight which a normal relationship will encounter. While Rajas was the love interest of Evie and soon became her boyfriend, Rajas “no-label” status has been a big problem for Evie and other trials they face throughout the story but soon passed the challenges. The romance was put fairly to make the story more engaging.The teacher-student relationship was also talked in the story, hmm…I’m not a fan of this relationship and will not abide any part of it though I have a lot to say about this topic I’ll just keep my mouth shut. 

The main thought of the story was devise from tip to toe. J.J. Johnson let us know that letting ourselves speak out and be heard is not bad but sometimes the way how we try to do it, that’s where the whole trouble might start. Evie’s not the only one whose life has change and did everything to make the mistakes that has been done be changed. Rajas, Jacinda and also their teachers Mr. Brookner and Ms. Gliss faces their own fears to change what they have to do, though some of them end up badly. The book was an enriched-lesson one that will not let you put it down until the last page.

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