When She Was Good

by Norma Fox Mazer

Book Overview

At the start of this startling, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting novel, a young woman named Pamela lies dead on the living room floor, with her younger sister, Em, wondering if she's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0590319906
• ISBN13: 9780590319904
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.2" x 6.7"
• Age Range: 14 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 9 to 12

Customer Reviews

Beyond Survival.

"Why did I go on thinking, even when Pamela slammed me around, that if you are good enough, patient enough, for long enough, your reward will come?"Have you ever read a book written by a child who has lived through war? "When She Was Good" gives you the exact same feeling.We enter the story as Em Thurkill is trying to choose a coffin for her older sister Pamela. Mazer tells the story of Em through flashbacks to her past. We discover that Em grew up in a trailer on the outskirts of a small town. Her mother was in a constant deep depression, her father an alcoholic, her older sister is abusive, paranoid, manipulative, and mentally unbalanced. After their mother's death, Pamela and Em run away from their remarried father and step-mother. In the city, Pamela forces the underage Em to get a job and support them both while Pamela spends her days sitting around the house making moppets. Pamela's death forces Em to start to deal with the abuse using a pattern many of us at LostSolace.com are familiar with: hearing the abuser yelling at us when the abuser isn't there, realizing the abuser will never come back, trying to find someone to save us, meeting people who are genuinely careing,finally finding salvation and hope within ourselves and starting on the path to liberation.

A magnificent piece of writing

"When She was Good" by Norma Fox Mazer is one of my all-time favorites.The reader is truly made to sympathize with Em, and really wants things to be okay for her. I'm afraid I don't understand where people are coming from when they say this book was too depressing for young adults. It is a very real displayal of the physical and emotional abuse suffered by this remarkable heroine. Em is put through so much in this book, but there always seems to be a sense of hope, however small. She learns and grows in a harsh cruel world with a violent sister and an unforgiving society. Norma Fox Mazer is amzing. This book is kept in my mind always and it has affected how I live from day-to-day. There is one passage in which Mazer talks about baby feet, and how everyone, every last human being, once had baby feet. It is pointed out that if we all had baby feet, chubby, naked, perfect little feet, how different can we really be? This book is magnificent and I STRONGLY reccomend it to anyone.

When She Was Good is amazing!

I have read many books lately and this has to have been the best. Em Thurkill is such an innocent girl and her brutal family life was awful. This book makes you feel for Em and want to take care of her. I think this book is great for teens because it's real writing. I could not put it down.

Stinging, sensitive, amazing

This book is one of the best I've ever read. Em deals with her brutally unfair life with a sweet, clear, almost innocent outlook that makes it hard to read. The characters are well-drawn, so real you almost expect them to live in your town, and Em's quest for a stable life finally comes together with a soft sort of triumph. Almost worth a sequel...but then again, it's best to make up a happy ending for yourself. My favourite characters are Em and the happy-go-lucky William ("That's a good one. I'm wet today, William...") Five stars. Absolutely.