ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

This book falls into the “OMG what if you were disabled/disfigured or had an eating disorder/dead family member or wound up with a teen pregnancy/STD or were a homeless teen with cancer taking care of your four younger siblings while your mom finished her stay in a mental hospital or some other incredibly unlikely and very sad dramatic plot device?” genre of young adult fiction. And it goes without saying that when I was around 12 or 13 I read this book about 40 times back to back. The story, which I basically know by heart, is about a popular cheerleader girl who gets meningitis and loses her hearing, as well as all the friends she ever had. Then she makes new friends with deaf people and learns sign language and learns that she too can have a fulfilled life. But a lot of depressing things happen in between.

A few months ago I pulled this book out of a box in my basement and reread it, but it didn’t give me quite the same thrill that it did in the past. Maybe you have to be a teen girl with a highly developed sense of drama to properly appreciate the real genius behind this work of literature. So I’m hoping that if I release it, someone will be kind enough to pass it on to the sweetest little drama queen they know.