Exposed Review

Title: Exposed
Author: Kimberly Marcus
Release Date: Feb. 2011
Publisher: Random House
Pages: 272

Sample Passage:

"The Best Trick

When we were small

Mike and I thought

Dad's friend from college

was better than Houdini

the way he could make coins

vanish into thin air.

But now Uncle Nate's traded his pouch of change

for a law degree and a Brooks Brothers suit,

and it's my dad who's on his cell phone

heading out the door, hoping Uncle Nate can make this

nightmare disappear."

(ARC, p.109)

Mini Review:

Pros: perspective, emotion, word choice

Cons: ending, too short

Overall: I strongly recommend it

Grade: A

Summary from Amazon:
Sixteen-year-old Liz is Photogirl—sharp, focused and confident in what she sees through her camera lens. Confident that she and Kate will be best friends forever.

But everything changes in one blurry night. Suddenly, Kate is avoiding her, and people are looking the other way when she passes in the halls. As the aftershocks from a startling accusation rip through Liz's world, everything she thought she knew about photography, family, friendship and herself shifts out of focus. What happens when the picture you see no longer makes sense? What do you do when you may lose everything you love most?

Written Review:
I don't know when it happened, but some time recently I've begun to like verse novels more and more. My latest one to fall in love was EXPOSED by Kimberly Marcus.

EXPOSED gets to the heart of the story quick and the pace only picks up as the story progresses. But this speedy read is in no way a light novel. It's full of an intensity that evokes strong, raw emotions throughout the novel.

Without giving too much away, this book covers so much loss; the loss of trust, the loss of a lifetime friendship, the loss of innocence, the loss of privacy, the loss of any sense of normal. And even towards the end of the novel I wouldn't say it was all gained back.

The prose itself make the novel. Not a word seems out of place and each one carries so much weight that it adds another level of depth and reality to the story.

The ending is real. It is not a happily-ever-after, it does leave questions and suspicions unanswered, and though I can see how some would see this as a definite problem, I feel that this story wouldn't be as true as it could be with anything else.

I greatly recommend this novel. A quick read full of depth, originality, and a different perspective on a touchy subject, EXPOSED is a strong debut that will definitely leave a mark on all who read it.