Sliding on the Edge

She's a tough girl!

This girl is a real mess. She has a mother who's a jerk, never even met her father and gets stuck staying with her witchy grandmother. There's a hot guy who works at the grandmother's place--a horse ranch in the middle of nowhere, but she gives him a hard time cuz he's too nice. You know how that is. This weird girl at school tries to make friends and she brushes her off though. She's a loner, like a lot of us. She cuts herself sometimes. She only gets along with a horse, but he's kind of messed up too. This book would make a good movie because they're like people you know.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Sliding on the Edge

One of the greatest compliments I can give a book is to say I sat down for a half hour to read and suddenly realized four hours flew by. So it was with C.Lee McKenzie's book "Sliding on the Edge." This is a story about survival in a not-so-friendly world. Shawna Stone is a troubled teenaged girl who is physically and emotionally abandoned by her mother; then sets off to live with a grandmother she has never met. The reader experiences Shawna's difficulties as she fights the past, barely grabs onto the present, and struggles to allow herself a future. To quote from the book: "I'm going over to a whole other side of the world." Great story for adults as well as teens.
Freddie Remza
author of "The Journey to Mei"

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Review from Blkosiner's Book Blog

Shawna is a troubled girl who has had to build a tough exterior due to how she grew up. Her Mom left her to fend on her own a lot, but when her Mom clears out their apartment with her boyfriend, a note telling Shawna to go to her Grandmother's house, to a complete stranger.
Under Kay (her Grandmother)'s love and structure, Shawna begins to open up. Kay runs a ranch with horses, who helps to open Shawna's heart as well. There is also a farm "hand" with personality and wise advice.

Shawna's journey was painful and raw, but I felt like I could connect with her, understand her reasons for acting the way that she does. I loved seeing her open up to Kay, Kenny and Casey as well as a girl at school, Marta who befriends her. I also love to read about her interactions with the horses. Her journey of healing has much to teach and gain.

For young AND old adults

This book has a much wider audience than young adults. As a grandmother, I learned about an epidemic among young people of today that I was totally unaware of. Its story of caring older adults who guide the young of whatever generation through hard times is an eternal one, but this book gives more: it shows how the young always teach their elders while they are being nurtured. I wondered how a teenager would like this story until I watched my granddaughter read it over two days during a family holiday. As she finished the last page, she looked up and said with some anguish, "I want MORE of this book!" Enough said. This book appeals to its intended audience. The dialogue is real, though salty, and corresponds to what I hear from the high school crowd now walking to and from school in front of my house. The characters are well developed. The story leaves a reader wanting to know more about the future that lies in store. This is a stunning first novel.

Good Job

Just finished reading Sliding on the Edge. Having worked for 23 years with emotionally disturbed, abused and neglected children I have to say I think Ms. McKenzie did a FINE job capturing the inner and out worlds of an abused/neglected teen-age girl. I really liked how Shawna says one thing/thinks another, behaves one way/wants to behave another, wants to trust/fears to trust. I also liked the shift from Shawna's 1st person account to 3rd person about Kay, her grandmother. It gave the story a near/far feel. It is all very immediate for Shawna, very happening right now, and shifting to 3rd for Kay made me feel Shawna's fear and isolation even more.

Good job.

edgy Young Adult crossover book

Shawna Stone is a sixteen-year old girl with deep emotional wounds. She has been told by her rather dysfunctional mother Jackie that her father had abandoned them before she was born and then was killed. In fact, Shawna cannot even remember if her father's name was Nic or Rick or whatever. Jackie and Shawna have moved around frequently and lived in a number of places but wind up in Las Vegas, Nevada, where Jackie becomes addicted to gambling Then one day, Shawna wakes up in their seedy apartment to find that Jackie has left for the East Coast with her current boyfriend Dylan to try their luck at the casinos in New Jersey. Shawna has nothing but an overdue rent notice and the phone number of her grandmother, Kay Stone, in Sweet River, California, along with a bus ticket to Sacramento and $100 that Dylan left her. After considering her options, Shawna chooses to go to Sweet River, where her youngish grandmother, who runs a horse ranch with the help of a grizzled farmhand named Kenny, must learn to cope with her foul-mouthed anger and shrugging indifference to everything, except a mistreated horse whom she names Magic on the ranch next door. However, it is even worse than Kay suspects. Shawna has an imaginary friend named Monster who drives her to find relief from her pain by cutting her ankles with a razor blade. Shawna has also brought her mom's bottle of sleeping pills in case she decides that she wants to end it all. Then there are the other kids at school with whom Shawna has to deal, including handsome Casey who works weekends on her grandmother's ranch. Furthermore, Kay has some of her own demons to work through, including the death of her son Nic and the breakup of her marriage after that. Will this unlikely pair be able to overcome their past and work out their inner sufferings? This is a fascinating coming of age story that is well told and will grip one's attention right from the very beginning. However, most Home School Buzz readers would probably want to be forewarned that since the author describes this book as an "edgy YA-crossover," there is quite a bit of rather explicit language that includes cursing (the "d" and "h" words), taking the Lord's name in vain, a lot of slang that many people consider vulgar, and even a few instances of the "s" and "f" words, along with various scenes of mature content. It is definitely not a book for small children. However, if this kind of thing does not bother you, it does contain an interesting picture of how people who are troubled learn to cope with life and find solutions to their problems. The author tells me that there is a teacher's guide that she has written and will be available with the book for schools probably in the fall of this year.