Can you hold on?

Keep Holding on is a book about a girl in high school who has one friend, a single mother and some boy issues. I thought the most interesting part of the book is the rising action. After the introduction when you realize that not only is she having social issues that every single high school kid has, her mother is the main problem. Her mother blames her whole life on the girl. The girl even calls her mom mother because she feels uncomfortable with her. Her mother had a baby at eighteen and says the reason her whole life was screwed up because of her. In the rising action she struggles with her mom and she struggles with her boyfriend and her crush.

I think the most interesting part of the rising action was the part with her mother. This was also the part with her friend not knowing about it and her not wanting to because she is worried about how she would react. Her mom never has food for her she's getting too skinny. It isn't that her mom never gets her food its that she never gets her good food, for example, she gets her mcdonalds. She doesn't get her food for lunch she makes mustard and mayonnaise sandwiches. She doesn't want anyone to know her food issues with her mother. Another thing is that her mom doesn't get her any clothes. She is stuck with the same clothes the worn out baggy clothes also she doesn't do the laundry. She is stuck doing her own laundry. Her mother has a certain schedule for when she can shower and its never when she wants to. Her issues with her mother to me is what made this book different from other books with a girl with social issues.

On the other hand the thing that made it just like a book with a girl with social issues was her boy issues and popularity issues. She had one friend a secret boyfriend who wouldn't let her tell anybody about them and never went out in public with her and a crush on a boy who she was certain didn't like her at all. As the book goes on and she gets stood up by her boyfriend forgives him and continues being with him in secret you realize how desperate she is for some friends any kind of boyfriend even if it's not the boy she wants to be with. She gets stood up by him and then she figures out he has a girlfriend when his girlfriend catches them together. It is interesting to me that she didn't scream at him either it wasn't that he was cheating on her he was cheating with her and she acted like she knew all along. This of course lead to more bullying at school. But worse than other bullying they shot her with paintballs and her mother barely did anything about it. I loved this book and it was different and similar to other books i've read but in a perfect way. It had the perfect balance between the good and the bad and even if it had a perfect ending you know it wasn't actually perfect.