Keep Holding On

Keep Holding On
written by Susane Colasanti

This is the YA novel about bullying that the world's been waiting for.  So many books addressing bullying take on a preachy stance, ignoring the realities that this bullying consumes a teen's life with shame, making it so difficult for bullying to be addressed.  Colasanti knows what she's talking about.  We are getting the raw, real story here.  I really love that the reader doesn't have to dig deep to find the morsels of meaning, the depth is all there, laid out, ready to be applied to the bullied lives of actual teens.  I have a lot of things I could say here.  I wish, and don't we all, I could one day have a one-on-one conversation with Colasanti about her books and her life, but for now, I'll revel in knowing that I am not alone, and neither are you.  The one adjustment I would have loved would have been either a sequel or an expansion of the story beyond the ending, because as with most endings, the ending was just a beginning.  Unlike many of those beginnings, though, it's one that's rarely written about, and if there's anyone I'd like to see writing that unwritten story, it's SC.