Bully by Penelope Douglas has been sitting on my Nook for some time now. I thought the premise sounded enticing when I bought it, but when I needed something new to read, I wasn't really interested. I've never read anything by Penelope Douglas before, and I was a bit on the fence about this book.
Bully tells the story of Tate. She was off in France for a year, and now she's back home for senior year, and her tormentor, Jared, didn't just forget about her while she was away. We watch as Tate attempts to figure out why Jared started hating her before high school, and if she can ever trust him again.
There are some pretty great reviews of this book on Goodreads, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't decide of they like this book. It's easy to sympathize with Tate as she deals with rumors and pranks at the hand of Jared; he pretty much controls her life. And once you know Jared’s back story, you can't help but feel sorry for him. But people with bad childhoods do not always become bad people, and people with bad childhoods don't have the right to take out their anger on the people who love them.
It took me some time to really get into the story. The writing included a lot of unwanted details, and it was slow moving at first. Maybe the moral of the story was that everyone deserves forgiveness, but I can't get on board with that.
I was also disappointed that this book took place in high school. It was a YA book in that the characters live at home and have a different kind of school setting that high school offers. But it was new adult in that both sets of parents were gone (so some of the thing we see in NA books like house parties, drinking, bad decision making are included), and the story deals with more adult themes. Overall, I wanted the setting to be college, because it would have added more to the story than a high school can, and it would have shown that bullying doesn't stop when high school ends.
In the end, I would say this book was middle of the road for me. I liked the characters, but seeing them do a 180 all of a sudden was not my cup of tea. I also wish the writing had been tighter; I think it would have held my interest more.
Thoughts? Do you think bullies should just be forgiven?
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