First published 2010
Viola finds herself shipped off to Prefect Academy, an all-girls boarding school in South Bend, Indiana. The move takes her far from Brooklyn and forces her to leave behind Andrew, her best friend forever and always. At Prefect, she discovers a world of sherbet-colored sweaters that feels completely foreign to her urban sensibilities. Her three new roommates seem to actually enjoy boarding school life, which baffles Viola even more. She retreats behind her video camera, using it as both a creative outlet and a shield from her new environment. The lens becomes her way of observing without fully participating in the unfamiliar social dynamics around her. As the school year progresses, Viola begins to realize that her assumptions about boarding school, her roommates, and even Indiana itself were completely wrong. The place she dreaded might actually offer her something unexpected and valuable. To discover what that might be, she needs to stop hiding behind her camera and engage with the world she initially rejected.
Genres: fiction, family-life, coming-of-age, contemporary, adolescence, boarding-school
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Brooklyn, Indiana, Prefect Academy, South Bend
224 pages · Kindle Edition · Simon & Schuster UK