Kara’s already pathetic life becomes even more so when she is stalked through anonymous notes that are increasingly threatening. She has no one to help her. Her current “friends” have never treated her as an equal. Indeed, everyone treats like her like a baby, including her family. Kara’s older sister Kellen drowned after drinking and falling into a pool. She was both Kara’s defender and tormentor. Kara’s mother turned to Jesus after Kellen’s death, opening a café to serve “miraculous” pea soup and has little time to spend with Kara. Her dad left, unable to cope with losing a daughter, apparently able to ignore the one he still has. Kara’s one talent is baking which everyone belittles as not a “real” skill. She secretly enters a cookie decorating contest, hoping to win a scholarship to culinary school. The notes continue to arrive. It seems the stalker is everywhere and yet invisible. The only one who notices her growing fear is Charlie, a childhood friend who admits he has always loved her. Still Kara cannot bring herself to tell him or anyone else what is going on until she is actually attacked. Her mother and others save her from being raped. Not long after, she receives an opportunity to apply for a scholarship for the culinary school and it looks as if she might finally be escaping her longtime victim status. Kara is such a sad character that a cloud of depression seems to hover over the book. The flashbacks to her childhood provide some insight but not enough to explain why she is treated with such disrespect. Even the surprise identity of the stalker reinforces her confusion over who to trust. The change in Kara’s mother and friends’ treatment of her after the attack is too abrupt to be truly believable. This is a mingling of creepy and cautionary—everyone being so caught up in themselves they fail to see what is happening to those closest to them. Reviewer: Pam Carlson; Ages 15 to 18.
