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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.

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