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It's the summer of 1970, and 15-year-old Jane is still reeling from the death of her father. She starts partying to deal with her grief, but a frantic call from her mother leads to her arrest.
Jane awaits her hearing with hope, but instead she is sentenced to a yearlong stay at the New York State Training School for Girls. She faces bullying and solitary confinement, and all seems lost. Then she's introduced to the Racket, an underground world of gender role-play, romantic relationships, and chosen families the inmates have created. She befriends and develops deep feelings for fellow inmate Jo-Jo, who shares her love of music. Jane comes to appreciate the complex lives of people she never would have gotten to know on the outside—but she knows that her new family can be taken away in an instant.
"Gritz presents an excoriating critique of the systemic squashing of girls' voices and the silencing of their desires and curiosity. Jane is cued white, and there's diversity in race and sexuality in the supporting cast. A thoughtful must-read that explores grueling attempts to destroy girls' spirits." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
This information about Take a Sad Song was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ona Gritz writes memoir, essays, and poetry for adults, verse novels for teens, and fiction for children. Her new memoir, Everywhere I Look, won the Pencraft Best Book Award in Nonfiction - Memoir, the Readers' Choice Gold Award for Best Adult Book, the Independent Author Award in New Nonfiction, the Independent Author Award in True Crime, and is an Independent Book Review 2024 Must-Read.
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