Alex, a 17-year-old student at a boarding school, wakes up naked in bed with a boy she cannot remember. Fragments of the night before begin to return to her. Going to a concert, drinking, playing a game, drinking, leaving with a boy she just met and returning to his room with him.... She knows they had sex, but also knows that she did not want to. It was date rape. Alex's life changes. She doesn't eat because she can no longer face the smirks and knowing smiles from the boy's friends in the cafeteria. She skips classes for fear that she might see him. With the encouragement of her roommate and her older sister, she decides to bring this case to the "Mockingbirds"--a student created justice system inspired by the Harper Lee novel TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. The boy claims the sex was consensual; Alex claims that she was too drunk to give consent. The Mockingbirds will decide.
The opening scene of Alex waking up in the boy's room and realizing what happened is one of the most disturbing and powerful beginnings in a young adult novel that I've read in a long time. The references to TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD are good and will resonate with students who have read that book. But it did get a little teachy, preachy in places.
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