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This book is about a conflict between two best friends. The main character's best friend falls in love with the main characters boyfriend. This is a good book for middle school for young adults to reason friendships and relationships. I wouldn't read this in the classroom. This is good for personal reading. ( )

This title is part of the Bluford High series, a hi-lo collection that features urban black high school students and their life issues and challenges. In this book Darcy is attracted to Hakeem but her former best friend Brisana seems to also be after him. At home, Darcy is uncertain about her father’s desire to return to the family after a five-year absence. No real cultural flavor here but more a treatment of typical teen issues.

A favorite series of my lower-level readers in middle school, this is the first time I'm touching Bluford. The amount of divergent, yet related, plots encompassed in such a short book was admirable. Given that the book is classed as hi-lo, the language was fairly standard with a good smattering of more complex sentence structures and a decent amount of higher level vocabulary. I can see why this is so popular. Darcy was a relatable character with exceptionally relatable issues. None of the solutions to her issues are spoon-fed to the audience fable or parable-style, instead allowing the reader to find their own solutions. The ending was ambiguous, but in such a way that it's actually kind of fulfilling. ( )