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Reviewed by:
  • Formerly Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham
  • Karen Coats
Bingham, Kelly . Formerly Shark Girl. Candlewick, 2013. 341p. Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-7636-5362-0 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-7636-6406-0 $16.99 R Gr. 7-10.

More than a year has passed since the fateful day when Jane lost her arm to a shark attack (in Shark Girl, BCCB 9/07), and she's making slow but steady progress in her recovery. She's also painting again, slowly teaching her left hand to do what her right hand did effortlessly. Her experiences with the caring medical staff that helped her through her ordeal have left her with the urgent desire to help others in some meaningful way, and the flood of letters that she still receives reinforces her sense of indebtedness. Her heart is still pushing her to be an artist, though, so she is caught between what she feels she should do and what she wants to do. Meanwhile, boys: the interested but unexciting guy in her science class, or Max, the sweet guy whom she thought was out of reach but who now seems imminently touchable? This next chapter in Jane's recovery is as solid as the first, relating the fears, hopes, and agonies of adjusting to her new circumstances with realistic waves of emotion that, while intense, never tip into the sentimental or maudlin. Jane is reasonable and mature, so that she is nervous and unsettled by her dissatisfaction with her first kiss, reluctant to have another surgery to correct the neuroma that has formed in her stump even though it causes agonizing pain, conflicted about her choice of college and major, and mature enough to approach all of these things deliberately and thoughtfully. The lyrical free verse is an especially apt choice for Jane's narrative voice; internal rhyme, assonance, and alliteration reflect the mental boxes that close around Jane's small daily decisions, decisions that she then second-guesses and revises as she goes along. Though a young woman recovering from a life-altering trauma, Jane is also experiencing the transitions common to senior year, and her careful working through of her decisions will resonate strongly with readers.

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