Bound To Stay Bound

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School Library Journal - 02/01/2012 Gr 4–7—Sonia Nadhamuni's world is turned upside down the summer before sixth grade, when her father loses his job and falls into clinical depression. Due to financial strain, Sonia is taken out of her progressive private school and enrolled in the larger, less intimate Maplewood Middle School. There, her Jewish American and East Indian heritage raises questions among her classmates, and she feels like an outsider. For the first time in her life, she feels unsure of how to articulate her racial and cultural identity. Additionally, she deals with angst over friendships, trying to decide if she should join the in crowd by becoming a cheerleader with popular Kate or remain on the social fringe with budding novelist Alisha. At home, Sonia feels alienated from her parents: her father's depression casts a pall over the entire family, and her mother's increased workload and stress adversely affect her relationship with her daughter. Things come to a head when Mr. Nadhamuni disappears; while her mother looks for him, Sonia reevaluates her friendships and accepts the fact that her dual heritage makes her a unique and whole girl. Hiranandani's thoughtful debut eloquently balances humor with sophisticated issues related to cultural identity, economic hardship, and mental health. An excellent addition with timeless appeal.—Lalitha Nataraj, Escondido Public Library, CA - Copyright 2012 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 01/01/2012 After Dad loses his job, Sonia Nadhamuni has to move from private to public middle school, and it is not easy for her to fit in, especially because Dad is Hindi and Mom is Jewish American. Sonia sometimes feels “too dark to be white, too light to be black.” Why is Kate, the star of the cool white crowd, so nice to Sonia, even taking her shopping and getting her on the cheerleading team? Should Sonia sit with Alisha and the black crowd in the lunchroom? There is also conflict at home: Mom hates cheerleading, shopping, reality TV, and junk food; Sonia hates Mom’s tofu-heavy cooking. To her shame, Sonia denies her Jewish roots. Then Dad gets depressed and things become much worse. Told in Sonia’s wry present-tense voice, the mixed-race-family identity conflicts, as well as the universal contemporary drama of trying to act cool––and decent—will easily pull readers through this debut novel. - Copyright 2012 Booklist.

Bulletin for the Center... - 03/01/2012 When Sonia’s father loses his job at the end of her fifth-grade year, it means she can’t return to her beloved private school and instead must navigate the rocky waters of public school for the first time. Up until this point, eleven-year-old Sonia has never thought that much about her identity as the daughter of an Indian father and a Jewish-American mother, but she is suddenly faced with questions that she can’t always answer about her race, her ethnicity, and her core values. She clumsily begins two friendships: with Kate, a very perky, popular girl who encourages Sonia to try out for cheerleading but seems very keen on transforming her into something she isn’t, and with Alisha, who, like Sonia, aspires to be a writer. Narrator Sonia seesaws between overly mature and completely childlike; while at times she contemplates on her challenges with clear adult overtones, at others her whiny sense of entitlement disrupts any implied personal growth. The description of public versus private middle school is a bit caricatured, with Sonia shocked by everything from the unhealthiness of the cafeteria food to playing spin the bottle at a birthday party. The exploration of the family’s struggles is stronger than the friendship storylines, and the illness of her father, who is diagnosed as clinically depressed, is effectively presented. While his subsequent disappearance does border on the overly dramatic, it serves the purpose of forcing the family to get it all together before the story’s conclusion, and there is great promise and hope in Sonia’s final reflections. In the end, Sonia rises above, and even those readers a bit irritated with her along the way are likely to cheer her evolution. HM - Copyright 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

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