The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney

Published: November 2010

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Pages: 332

Copy Provided by: 

Summary: Goodreads

Summary:

Some schools have honor codes.
Others have handbooks.
Themis Academy has the Mockingbirds.

Themis Academy is a quiet boarding school with an exceptional student body that the administration trusts to always behave the honorable way--the Themis Way. So when Alex is date raped during her junior year, she has two options: stay silent and hope someone helps her, or enlist the Mockingbirds--a secret society of students dedicated to righting the wrongs of their fellow peers.

In this honest, page-turning account of a teen girl's struggle to stand up for herself, debut author Daisy Whitney reminds readers that if you love something or someone--especially yourself--you fight for it.

Review:

Stunning.  I absolutely LOVED this title!!  I have wanted to read The Mockingbirds for such a long time because I everyone always raved about it but I never knew what it was about.  The Mockingbirds deals with REAL issues and the main character Alex is exactly how I would imagine my best friend to be.  She is normal. She is not overly pretty, not overly popular and there is no reason why she would stand out but this horrible thing happens to her and she is given the opportunity to right the wrong.  She is given a voice to speak out and stop being a wallflower and stop others from being wallflowers as well.  Ms. Whitney stays true to the character as she questions why she should say anything at all.  She feels guilty, she questions what really happened, she feels exposed and goes through a plethora of complicated emotions that contradict what she is thinking but in the end, she asks for help and the Mockingbirds take a look at her case.

At first I thought this novel might be more about the Mockingbirds than Alex but it wasn't.  It focused on Alex as a victim and her stuggle to get past date rape and bring the boy who did it to justice.  However, instead of going to the police, The Mockingbirds provided a more internal police/legal system which actually used (to a certain degree) peer pressure to monitor the behavior of your fellow students.  It was a brilliant!!  In fact, after this book was published, I wonder if there are any schools out there who have established their own "Mockingbirds" systems of accountability.  Like The Hate List by Jennifer Brown, I think the Mockingbirds should be on EVERY ISU reading list for school.  A+ Ms. Whitney.  :)  Well done!