full ride

Margaret Peterson Haddix

     Haddix's books have an impressive amount of variety, a sharp contrast to the authors that use the same plots and simply replace the characters.  As a grade schooler, I thought she was the absolute master of plot twists and cliff hangers at the ends of chapters.  Even as a college student, these books continue to capture my attention, and I genuinely enjoy reading them.  This book would be a good addition to a 5th-8th grade library, though its length (343 pages) may make it more appealing for avid readers.

Summary:  Becca is a popular 8th grader with a rich family when her dad, Roger Jones, is suddenly arrested and sent to prison for white collar crimes after a nationally televised trial.  With the help of her father's lawyer, Mr. Trumbull, she and her mother go into hiding by moving to Deskins, Ohio.  She begins high school while her mother works as a nurse.  Instead of hanging out with the popular kids, she decides to lay low and ends up becoming a part of the "nerd" group.  

       Fast forward to Becca's senior year.  Her first friend, Jala, has graduated early due to pressure from her family and started attending Ohio State, but she still has Stuart (rich, sometimes obnoxious, determined to go to an Ivy League school), Rosa (closer to Becca than the boys, also poor, watches the popular girls with her since it reminds her of telenovelas), and Oscar (a bit less studious, humorous, and kind). 

       Her mother tells her that it is too dangerous for her to apply for financial aid, so Becca begins looking for scholarships.  The Whitney Court Scholarship seems to be the answer to all her problems, and all she has to do is write an essay about a member of Whitney's graduating class.  After looking through the yearbooks, in which Whitney appears everywhere, she decides that Whitney is the only person worth writing about.  As she talks to former teachers and neighbors, she finds that they refuse to talk about Whitney's life after high school.  She finds two newspaper articles on the deep web about a DUI and suspected drug use,  which lead her to conclude that Whitney threw away her life.            She becomes suspicious that the scholarship is another scam of her father and writes a scathing letter to her father, but simply saves it on her computer.  She is contacted as a finalist and goes in to the interview, only to find out that Whitney has schizophrenia, and she was invited to the interview because the Courts think she is mentally ill.  She sent in her rant about her father instead of her real essay about Whitney.  She tries to prove her identity by finding her birth certificate online, only to discover it is gone.  She runs home.

        Her mother reveals that the real reason they are in hiding is that her father has information against Excellerand, a corrupt computer company like Google or Microsoft.  To silence him, they may attack Becca and her mother.  Since Becca revealed her identity to Mr. Court, who reported it to Ms. Stela, her guidance counselor, who made a post online, Becca and her mother need to contact Mr. Trumbull to ask him for new identities.  Their only safe way to communicate is by mail, which is too slow, so Becca goes on a college trip with her friends, with the secret intention of visiting Mr. Trumbull.  When she visits him, she is accidentally handed a letter by the new receptionist.  She discovers her father is imprisoned there in Atlanta, not California, as the letters they receive through Mr. Trumbull's office indicated.  She visits her father and discovers that Mr. Trumbull has been faking the correspondence between her father and mother, as well as the entire Excellerand threat, so that he can blackmail Excellerand.  He made them believe that Roger had evidence against them that he did not, using the disappearance of Becca and her mother as proof.

        Roger tells Becca what she must do now (after she decides against his first idea, blackmailing Mr. Trumbull).  Becca and her mother gather vocal evidence against Mr. Trumbull in an FBI sting operation, which ends with his arrest.  Becca is now free to keep her identity and go to college.