Synopsis: Between Noelle’s difficult home life and the bullying she endures at school, all she wants is to get out of her small town. Noelle would give anything to be with Julian Porter. But staying with her emotionally distant boyfriend is safer. When things heat up between Noelle and Julian, she has to decide whether she can be her true self with him. (Goodreads.com)
Every reader is going to sympathize with Noelle. You would be very cold-hearted if you didn't feel sympathy for her. She has a secret boyfriend who wants nothing to do with her outside of random make-out sessions. Her mother is awful and only concerned with herself and every day at school Noelle is assaulted mentally and physically and no one does anything about it. Believe me, I felt awful for Noelle. But.. that did not make this story all that strong really. Colasanti is a very, very readable author. This is a relatively short book and has high reluctant reader appeal: short chapter, a romance, a great best friend, and a character many teens are going to relate to. That being said, I really felt the message of anti-bullying was so heavy-handed and blatant. This is not a bad thing but it also, for me, did not do the story any favors.
Honestly, as I was reading, instead of envisioning the character of Noelle, I felt like I was reading Susane Colasanti's teenage years in a book, especially as the story progressed. Noelle became less and the authorial voice just seemed to overtake the story with messages so heavily laden with being unique, standing out, and that being different is good that it all felt forced. None of those messages are bad of course but it would be great if they had been worked into the text in a way that was not quite so right in front of your face. There was also a very negative "small town, suburban area" message to this book which I found to be quite distasteful. I realize that the suburbs are not for everyone and in fact a lot of teenagers do want to escape them but I feel like it was not Noelle who wanted out of the suburbs but Colasanti who wanted out of the suburbs. Yes, there are definitely negatives to the suburban life but there are also positives too.
There is also a plot involving Noelle's best friend, Sherae, who was raped by her boyfriend. It is only finally addressed as rape towards the end of the book but it is clear that what Sherae has been having nightmares about, why she has been avoiding her ex-boyfriend, is clearly rape. There is a bit of an attempt at the end to say that Sherae is getting the help she needs but it didn't seem like the boy who raped her was facing any consequences. This plot was just barely fit in amidst Noelle's issues and it really got short-shrift because the story really was not long enough or frankly complex enough to handle the very scary and complex issue of rape.
While I definitely breezed through this book and I definitely like Colasanti's stories, I have many reservations about Keep Holding On. There was just too much of Colasanti in the book. Noelle had so many issues going on but by the time the book was over I felt Noelle was a bit of a Mary Sue. She had this perfect, amazing writing talent that she just seemingly discovered. She had this really handsome boy who wanted her despite everything and Noelle's relationship with her mother was strange and was fairly glossed over by the end of the book. After years of being abused by her classmates, she finds her confidence out of nowhere. It just felt all very abbreviated and too fast.
When it comes down to it though, teens are going to enjoy this book and even though it didn't all work for me, this book is going to fly off the shelves and that is one of the most important criteria I have when purchasing a book for my library.
Keep Holding On comes out in June 2012 from Viking.
ARC from Around the World Tours.
