Sara Zarr, author of the National Book Award Finalist, Story of a Girl, is back with her new YA (young adult) novel Sweethearts.

As children, Jennifer Harris and Cameron Quick were both social outcasts. They were also each other’s only friend. So when Cameron disappears without warning, Jennifer thinks she’s lost the only person who will ever understand her. Now in high school, Jennifer has been transformed. Known as Jenna, she’s popular, happy, and dating, everything “Jennifer” couldn’t be—but she still can’t shake the memory of her long-lost friend.

When Cameron suddenly reappears, they are both confronted with memories of their shared past and the drastically different paths their lives have taken.

I enjoyed Sweethearts immensely. It’s a great novel for young women and while there’s some very adult topics, namely child abuse and parental neglect, the writing and story are age appropriate. For more on Sara and her books check out her website at www.sarazarr.com.

Five Questions for Sara Zarr

1. Sara, your book Sweethearts has a bittersweet ending. Were you trying to share with your readers “better to have loved than have not loved at all” when it comes to friendship?

No – there’s no agenda or lesson to the ending, it’s just what I felt was authentic for those characters in that situation. Without giving too much away, I didn’t see how it could turn out any other way given all of the circumstances. Maybe a few years after the ending of the book, there’s still a chance for a different outcome to their relationship.

2. Do you really believe kids who are ugly ducklings can turn into swans while still in high school? Or does personal reinvention only happen when people “grow up”?

I don’t see Sweethearts as an ugly-duckling-to-swan story. I see Jenna as a girl whose primary goal was emotional and social survival, and once she lost her only friend—and without the support of siblings or a parent who could take a break from work long enough to guide her—she only did what she felt she needed to do to get through. That said, adolescence is a time of constant change and growth and the trying on of new identities, so, yeah, I think anyone can do a surface reinvention in high school. Of course, it’s not necessarily a true transformation.

3. In Sweethearts, social outcast Jennifer transforms into pretty, smart and popular Jenna. With movies like Napoleon Dynamite celebrating the quirky high schooler, why did you decide to change her? I almost wished she embraced her outcast status and did something positive with it instead of playing by society’s rules of thin, cute, and nice.

This relates to the previous question—Jennifer/Jenna has limited options here. If she were to embrace her status without any support in the form of friends or family, what would that look like given the kind of bullying she had to endure? How would that actually work for a fifth-grader? Again, I don’t really have an agenda when I write other than to tell, authentically, the story I’m working with. It wasn’t so much that I decided to change her, as she had to change to survive. Other than in movies like Napoleon Dynamite, high school is not renown for celebrating the quirky outsider. Of course, this all points to one of the central debates about literature for young people—should you portray the world as it is or as you wish it would be? I do write realistic fiction, and like to think that I portray the world as I wish it was within the realistic confines of the world as it is.

4. Both Cameron and Jenna have been neglected to various degrees by their parents. One saves himself and the other is saved by a loving step-parent. Are you hoping that your book will reach kids who are neglected and give them hope?

When I was about 11, my mom remarried and I wound up with a great stepfather who changed our lives for the better. He died this past June, and I’m happy to tell a story that includes a non-evil stepparent! Maybe readers will see the character of Alan, who is pretty low-key, and recognize characteristics of a parent or stepparent or adult in their lives who might already be there ready, willing, and able to provide support.  

5. Growing up were you more like a Jennifer or a Jenna? What helped you (books, parents, teachers, etc.) get through your emotional teenage years?

There are some things I share with both of them, but I was never as isolated as either of them. I had a sister and always had friends. There were periods of loneliness, and my home was somewhat unstable in my early years so there were money issues and feelings of not being certain about what each day would hold and sadness about my father’s inability to be the kind of dad I wanted. My mom, though functionally a single parent, did a fantastic job with us and paid a lot more attention than Jennifer’s mom.

Probably the single most stabilizing force in my childhood and adolescence was church. I grew up in church and attended every Sunday with my mother and sister, and later my step dad, for virtually all of my youth. I didn’t always believe or enjoy it, but it created a second circle of family and community in my life…sort of a protective layer of adults who were looking out for me, and there was also the guiding belief that there was something more going on in life than what was immediately apparent. With that kind of regular interaction with a core group of people, it would have been nearly impossible for me to fall through the cracks.

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