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Title details for True to Form by Elizabeth Berg - Available

True to Form

by Elizabeth Berg
Jen Taylor
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available

Katie Nash--the beloved heroine of Elizabeth Berg's previous novels Durable Goods and Joy School--is thirteen years old in 1961, and she's facing a summer full of conflict. Her father has enlisted her in two care-taking jobs--baby-sitting for the rambunctious Wexler boys and, equally challenging, looking after Mrs. Randolph, her elderly, bedridden neighbor. To make matters worse, Katie has been forcibly inducted into the "loser" Girl Scout troop, compliments of her only new friend Cynthia's controlling mother. Her only saving grace is a trip to her childhood hometown in Texas, to visit her best friend Cherylanne. But people and places change--and Cherylanne is no exception. When an act of betrayal leaves Katie wondering just what friends are really for, she learns to rely on the only one left she can trust: herself.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 15, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780792761266
      • File size: 162971 KB
      • Duration: 05:39:31

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This sentimental novel might be better served by a different reader. Jen Taylor's approach to a Texas-Missouri accent as spoken by a teenager is to speak quickly in a twang. As a result, the main character, Katie, comes off as unbearably whiny. Five hours of teenaged angst and unkindness, mixed with pseudo-Catholic penance and greeting-card platitudes, make this a sad, unrefreshing tale. R.F. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 20, 2002
      Berg is the master of the soft-focus, nonconfrontational women's novel, as evidenced in her 2000 Oprah Book Club selection, Open House. In her latest work, which again features the pubescent narrator first encountered in her debut novel, Durable Goods, she describes a summer in the life of 13-year-old Katie Nash. It is 1961, and Katie's mother has been dead for two years; Katie lives with her dour military father and peppy stepmother in Missouri. Resigned to allowing her strict dad to find her summer jobs, in her free time she gorges herself on junk food with her best friend, Cynthia, and works on her tan. Katie's first-person voice is deliberative and colloquial, and the story told is rarely eventful: the highlights come when Katie first starts working for a kind, needy elderly couple, the Randolphs, and wins a radio contest offering a free plane ticket anywhere in the world. Yet where does Katie choose to fly? Back to Fort Hood, Tex., where she last lived before her mother died and where she can revisit her former best friend, Cherylanne, who is slightly older than Katie and well versed in the ways of boys, clothes and getting married fast. The trip peters out when Katie realizes she really has nothing in common with boy-crazy Cherylanne. Meanwhile, Mr. Randolph secures a scholarship for Katie at the upscale school where he once taught, but even this boon becomes a hurdle when Katie belittles Cynthia to land in the rich girls' good graces. Berg lays nostalgia traps at every turn in her 10th feel-good novel, but her readers for the most part will be happy to fall into them. 14-city author tour.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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