Really enjoyable read! Engaging twist on ths popular star athlete meets enigma new girl at school trope in that the problems they have are VERY real. These are smart, mature kids- but not unrealistically so which made the story ring true for me. I felt for Carter...trying to juggle the noal teen pressures of grades and girls while living a secret life as the child of an alcoholic parent. Kira was great as the new girl who is so comfortable in her own skin she defies trends and marches to her own drum...or is she?Nice pacing, very sweetly romantic. No sex but hey...appropriate for the YR genre. This is one I would allow my girls to read when they are just a bit older. Carter has secrets, secrets that if he was to share with anyone they could destroy his family. So he does whatever he can do to be normal or well in his case , pretend. His mother is an alcoholic and a single mother who owns her own business , he has an abusive grandfather and a sister with Down syndrome and to top it all off , he is starting to fall asleep in class and his grades are slipping. He has also been issued an ultimatum - get the grades up or lose basketball - the one thing that keeps him going. Carter has had a girlfriend Mel for the past few years but she's only interested in skin deep and this hasn't bothered him until now. Enter new girl Kira , she is different than anyone Carter has ever met and she slowly finds herself in Carter's life at school and out of school. Can she be the catalyst that Carter needs in order to find out who he really is , unload the burden and finally free himself from all the secrets he has been keeping ? Find out in Nyrae Dawn's teen book "Freeing Carter".
What do You think about Freeing Carter (2000)?
3.5 stars. Male pov, interracial relationship, damaged teens dealing with choices of their parents.
—alba
