Stranded - J.T. Dutton

The Story: In Heaven, Iowa, nothing is as it seems. People hide their secrets and there´s a church that control their thoughts and deeds. And that´s where Kelly Louise will live.

And that´s in Heaven, this town so full of principles, that a little baby is found dead, a newborn, in the middle of the street. And nobody knows who´s the mother that abandoned her.

Besides her mother, Kelly lives with a conservative grandmother and a cousin of her age, but with entirely different personalities. While one of them is very cool, talks naturally about sex and makes her own mistakes, Natalie, the cousin, is very religious, follows all the rulles imposed by her grandmother and is repressed in every way.

But Natalie has a secret. Something that can change the way people see her and something that can prove that looks can be deceiving.

My Opinion: "Stranded" is known as a Young Adult book, but I´d say that it´s much more than that. When I started reading it, I thought I would encounter a teen drama, like The O.C. (that I really love). But I was completely mistaken. The story is strong, but the author tells it in a very soft and funny way and I got surprised.

Kelly and her cousin Natalie are very different, as I said, but there are some similarities between them. Although Natalie seems conformed with the life she lives, at every oportunity, she shows herself trapped in a cocoon, longing for freedom. Deep inside, she envies Kelly, that´s the family´s black sheep, at least in theory.

Natalie had a very hard life, and it makes us feel sorry for her (even when she acts like a bitch) and these difficults that he had been through made me understand her attitudes and justify her weird behavior for a girl her age.

To me, Stranded was a book with a beautiful moral that teaches us not to judge anybody by appearance. Human being are much more complex then they appear and you may never know a person, no matter how long you know her.

Recomended!

How many stars: ****

Sondtrack: Unfold by Marie Digby.

"I don´t wanna go on living

Being so afraid of showing

Someone else my imperfections."