ShareThisBy REBECCA YOUNG
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Store windows and front porches might be decked out with ghosts, black cats and witches, but high school juniors and seniors face a far more terrifying specter this season:
The SAT test.
One national test date just passed, on Oct. 14. Those students wait anxiously for their scores. Another looms Nov. 4.
Mariah Fredericks' entertaining new novel, "Crunch Time," should hit home.
Fredericks tells her story in the voices of four New York private school students as they prepare for their first try at the SAT. They (or their parents) believe their scores represent life or death for their college dreams.
The four juniors get together after they walk out on an SAT prep course. The instructor is late, so the students from Dewey High School impatiently decide to form their own study group.
They're a diverse quartet.
Leo is handsome and smart, but he's so focused on success that he's bypassed extracurricular activities. He wants to go to Yale.
Daisy is gorgeous and athletic, a star on the girls' basketball team. She blew the PSATs, precursor to the SATs. She needs a good score to get a scholarship because her parents can't afford college.
Daisy's best friend, Max, is short, homely, but smart and a great writer. He's secretly in love with Daisy. His single dad pushes him mercilessly. He wants to go to Yale or Columbia.
Jane is pretty and probably smart, but shy and insecure. Her mother is a famous movie star, and her stepdad has questionable intentions toward Jane. She's incredulous as the other three begin to act like they like her. She's never had real friends before.Fredericks is good at portraying the main characters and also fleshing out the supporting players. Readers will quickly begin to care about all four.
The shifting voice technique is effective. For example, when Leo acts like a jerk from Max's point of view, the reader soon gets inside Leo's head and understands what's going on with him.
The story isn't just about studying for a test. There's humor, romance and major drama two-thirds of the way through, when a senior who got a perfect score the year before discloses to an administrator that someone hired her to take the test.
Is it one of the four we've grown to care about? Or a supporting character we've also gotten to know? Fredericks effectively keeps the reader guessing by shifting suspicion from one person to another. That shifting of suspicion divides the four friends at times.
The identity of the cheater makes good sense when it comes out in the wash.
Mixed seamlessly into the absorbing plot is wise counsel about tests, college, cheating and life as the friends discuss the big issues.
And students who read the "About the Author" page at the end will find comforting words. "Not a single job interviewer has ever asked (Fredericks) where she attended college, what her GPA was, or for that matter, how she did on the SATs."
Fredericks is also the author of the popular "The True Meaning of Cleavage," another young adult novel.
(Contact RebeccaYoung at rebecca.young(at)thenewstribune.com)
