Bottled Up

by Jaye Murray

Overview

Pip’s desperate to escape his life—he’s been skipping classes, drinking, getting high. Anything and everything to avoid his smug teachers, his sweet but needy little brother, his difficult home life. Now he’s been busted by Principal Giraldi and given an ultimatum: either he shows up for all his classes and sees a counselor after school, or he’s expelled. Pip’s freaked out; not because he might get kicked out of school, but by the thought that Giraldi might call his father. Because Pip will do anything to avoid his father.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101042724
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	11/18/2004
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	228 KB
Age Range:	12 Years

About the Author

First-time novelist Jaye Murray is a social worker who lives in New Rochelle, New York.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Alternately cocky, funny and maudlin, [this novel] gets its appeal from Pip's unnervingly convincing teenage voice. (The Washington Post)

Editorial Reviews

This bumpy rehab saga gets its appeal from Pip's unnervingly convincing teenage voice. Alternately cocky, funny and maudlin, it is so credible it even saves the book from its perilously close-to-mushy ending. — Elizabeth Ward

The Washington Post

Tackling a familiar theme, Murray pens a compelling debut about a teenage boy with an abusive, alcoholic father. Pip, who's usually stoned, goes into counseling to avoid getting expelled and thereby incurring even more of his father's wrath. In the high schooler's convincing first-person narrative, he struggles with his family's secrets but starts to fall apart under the pressure. A helpful counselor, the boys in his group counseling sessions, and a new teacher provide some support, but it's concern for his younger brother that gives Pip the courage to try, with mixed success, to give up drugs. Painfully believable scenes reveal his father's drinking and violence, his mother's addiction to Valium, and Pip's own escape from his miserable home life through marijuana and alcohol. No easy ending ensues, but Pip's emerging strength, realistically portrayed, bodes well for his future. (Fiction. 12+)

Kirkus Reviews

Alternately cocky, funny and maudlin, [this novel] gets its appeal from Pip's unnervingly convincing teenage voice. (The Washington Post)

From the Publisher