Review - Hooked by Catherine Greenman

Title: Hooked
Author: Catherine Greenman
Publisher: Delacorte Books
Publish Date: Aug 9, 2011
Hardcover, 276 pages

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Thea isn't the character I thought her to be. The has interesting relationships with her parents - her mother is a hippie with no real focus, nor parenting skills; her father is overprotective and has his own idea of how her life should be lived. She then falls in love with a guy who I kept wondering what it was she really finds attractive. She talks a lot about his wandering eye which resulted from a freak accident. How he likes her from the beginning, but isn't really all that attentive. Then to be with him, she starts missing school, not doing homework and forgetting about practice SAT tests. Before she knows it, she is pregnant. Though she tells everyone she is taking care of it, she kind of forgets it's even progressing. She is able to lie to everyone til one day she lets it out of the bag - she wants this baby. Her first real decision to take life into her own hands is pretty much her downfall.

I wanted to like Thea so much, but she kept letting me down and making stupid decisions. She seemed smart, but did things against her father out of spite. She never really tried to talk to him. She also used her mother's inability to be present as an excuse as her relationship. I was confused through this book. I wanted to like it so much because there were key stories and people I loved, but then they turned around and did something that left me questioning their motives.

It was a good book. It covered some very important topics of teenage pregnancy, parental relationships, opening up and knowing who you really are. It can be so hard to hear your own voice when everyone else is yelling over yours. Finding a personal voice is a struggle just from being a kid and having parents, but add to that any major obstacles and it ends up being a bit like this book.



Summary -
Thea Galehouse has always known how to take care of herself. With a flighty club-owner mom and a standoffish, recovering-alcoholic dad, Thea has made her own way in her hometown of New York, attending the prestigious and competitive Stuyvesant High School. But one chat with Will, a handsome and witty senior, and she's a goner—completely hooked on him and unable to concentrate on anything else.
Always worried that she loves Will more than he loves her, Thea is pleasantly surprised when their romance weathers his move to college and Will goes out of his way to involve her in his life. But then, Thea misses a period. And that starts Thea and Will on a wild ride that neither of them could have possibly prepared for. When they decide to keep the baby, their concerned parents chip in what they can to keep Will in school and give both teenagers a comfortable place to raise their child. But when a freak accident leaves Thea shaken and threatens to upend their little family altogether, Thea is forced to turn to the last place she would have chosen for comfort: her stiff, uncompromising father.
This smart, touching first novel brims with realistic, beautifully drawn characters, and reminds us that love is never as easy or predictable as we might like it to be.