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(More customer reviews)Nadia's father died of a heart attack when she was five. Her mother told Nadia that she had the same condition, and kept Nadia sequestered all of her life. Now in sixth grade, Nadia has no friends, no activities, and the bleak outlook of being further isolated by being home schooled. Her slightest cough has her mother putting to bed. Sometimes in school, Nadia gives up as well and puts her head on her desk--after all, no one expects anything from the sick girl. She tries out for the school play, does a brilliant audition and is devastated when she doesn't get the part. She finds out later that her mother told the teacher not to allow Nadia to participate. Nadia is old enough now to raise questions, and, with typical coming-of-age surging of independence, to rebel against her parent. She finds out, by virtue of being in a position to read her medical chart at the doctor's office, that she is perfectly fine, a slight heart murmur notwithstanding. This encourages Nadia to take her life back to herself. Some reviewers have felt the narrator's voice to be unsympathetically whiny, but it is perfectly well-drawn for a child who was treated as sickly her whole life. Who wouldn't be whiny? This is a well-done chyrsalis-to-butterfly story--the larval stage being neither understood nor revered by most onlookers.
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