Catherine Atkins young adult novel The File on Angelyn Stark shows the perseverance of its title character even as the
adults around her, and sometimes her own judgment, fail her. Angelyn thinks of
herself and her friends Jacey and Charity as the tough girls at her high
school. At the beginning of the book the three run into Jeni, who at first
appears to be meek but turns out not to be afraid of their bullying. Jeni, even
though she’s new at school, knows a few things about Angelyn’s past that
Angelyn would like to keep in the past.
Since
The File on Angelyn Stark is not
heavy on plot, I won’t give any more of it away. The book’s strength is its
character development. The characters are not clearly good or bad, and many of
them you’ll find yourself alternately loving or hating or some combination of
the two. There are few clear villains in The
File on Angelyn Stark and this is a good thing.
My
one complaint about Atkins’ novel is that at times it reads too much like a
play. Many pages are almost all dialogue with only occasional quick
descriptions of the characters’ actions and surroundings. Events seem to move
along at such a breakneck pace that I found myself getting lost at several
points. At the same time, Atkins can’t be accused of getting bogged down in
extensive descriptions of people and places.
John
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