Waiting on Wednesday (#8)

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. This meme highlights some of the books whose releases bloggers are most anticipating this year.

The book whose release I am most excited for this week is...

Title: The S-Word 

Author: Chelsea Pitcher

Release Date: May 7th, 2013

Lizzie wasn’t the first student at Verity High School to kill herself this year. But the difference is, she didn’t go quietly. First it was SLUT scribbled all over the school’s lockers. But one week after Lizzie Hart takes her own life, SUICIDE SLUT replaces it—in Lizzie’s own looping scrawl. Photocopies of her diary show up in the hands of her classmates. And her best friend, Angie, is enraged. Angie stopped talking to Lizzie on prom night, when she caught Lizzie in bed with her boyfriend. Too heartbroken to ask for an explanation or to intervene when Lizzie got branded Queen of the Sluts and was cruelly bullied by her classmates, Angie left her best friend to the mercy of the school, with tragic results. But with this new slur, Angie’s guilt transforms into anger that someone is still targeting Lizzie even after her death. Using clues from Lizzie’s diary and aided by the magnetic, mysterious Jesse, Angie begins relentlessly investigating who, exactly, made Lizzie feel life was no longer worth living. And while she might claim she simply wants to punish Lizzie’s tormentors, her anguish over abandoning and then losing her best friend drives Angie deeper into the dark, twisted side of Verity High—and she might not be able to pull herself back out.

I tend to steer clear of truly serious contemporary novels and really just contemporary fiction in general unless I'm in need of a quick read, chick-flick, or just something fun, but The S-Word is a novel that simply demands to be read. With its provocative title, bold cover, and important subject, this is a book that I am very much interested to read. It isn't that there haven't been novels written about suicide, being a slut, or the consequences of name-calling, because there have been, there are, and there will be in the future. Yet, the reason this one really caught my eye was because it was told from the perspective of a guilty, upset, and angry best friend. Not only that, but it is more than just an investigation into the suicide of one teen - it seems to be an investigation into the cruel heart of high schools all around the world. I truly believe that this is one story that everyone will need to read, simply because of its deep and profound messages and I can only hope it lives up to its full potential.