Identity Discovery

Sykosa is a very unique story compared to all the others I had reviewed. At times it is difficult to follow because it seems like it switches between wanting to be first person and actually being third person. Also the perspectives change through out the writing. There were definitely times that I was unsure of who was actually telling certain portion of the story. It is primarily from Sykosa's perspective and the parts that could be seen as from another character might actually be Sykosa's interpretation of what that character is thinking/feeling.

Aside from the perspective difficulties, the plot line was very interesting. Sykosa is a junior in a christian high school. She is best friends with Niko and "seeing" a boy named Tom. I put that in quotes because their relationship is a secret through out most of the story. Sykosa has a severe problem dealing with something that happened a year ago that has been emotionally traumatizing to her which surrounds her friends and a clique. I am not going to write out what the names of the cliques are because I try to keep my blog posts family friendly as much as I can. This book is definitely not family friendly for those of you that do not like reading about physical interactions and thoughts of such interactions. The characters in this book do not "make love" if that gets my point across. Anyway, I have no clue what the event is that has scarred Sykosa so much. It is not spelled out for you simply and I believe that is because by the end of the book Sykosa is learning how to handle her anxiety. The excerpt from Book 2 indicates that you will learn what happened during her sophomore year, and I believe the author withholds this information until then to show us how much she is healing. Ironically, her physical intimacy with Tom is her healing process. Ironic because I think that that is a major part of her emotional damage, just it wasn't with Tom.

You will learn a lot about how cliques in high school turn destructive and how the battles among them are directly related to race, home issues, and teenage development. Sykosa and her best friend Niko are Asian which ends up playing a huge role in how they are accepted in their American christian high school. It was an interesting read, and I definitely want to read the second book just because I really want to know what happened during sophomore year. I finished this book feeling like a huge chunk was missing because I really don't know what happened in the past.

Read more reviews at Identity Discovery Blog.