Friction by E.R. Frank

I just finished reading the book "Friction" by E.R. Frank. Before reading this book, I had said that I wanted to learn more about how dangerous gossip could be and whether or not there may be hidden reasons behind why people spread these rumors/lies. Without trying to spoil the ending, let's just say that I learned about all of this.

This book is told from the point of view of Alexandra Crocker, but everyone calls her Alex. Alex is in 8th grade, and attends a private school. Her best friend is TIm, and they do everything together. Her teacher, Simon, has been her teacher since 6th grade. All of a sudden, a new girl named Stacy comes to their school, and shakes things up with all of the rumors she spread. At first no one believes these rumors, and just ignores her, but soon the rumors seem to have some truth to them. These rumors create a strain in the friendship between Tim, Alex, and Simon, and things grow tense. No one is sure what to believe.

I recommend this book to anyone willing to read it. This book was a great read, and the rising tensions with the rumors soon made me question the true intentions of what the characters did. I must admit that even though the overall idea of the book was a good one, I thought that at the beginning of the book the characters seemed more like 6th graders than 8th graders, and I found some parts of the beginning a bit childish. But I think that the author probably did this on purpose so that we could see/understand how sheltered these private school kids were.



***SPOILER ALERT***
[DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END OF THE BOOK]

Okay. This book brought up the all important issue of sexual abuse, and how close relationships with teachers should really be. In this book, the new girl Stacy, started to spread rumors about how Simon, the teacher, liked Alex. Of course, Alex rebuked these ideas, but soon she began to wonder whether or not Stacy was right. Stacy continued to gossip, as more and more "evidence" that Simon liked Alex built up. After a while, she changed her story, and started saying how Alex started to like Simon. Alex began to question herself, telling herself that all the accusations weren't true. Tim started to get mad/jealous/worried about Alex, and her relationship btwn her and Simon. He bought the lies that Stacy fed him. In the end, we learn that Stacy was really lying, but that there was still some bit of truth behind what she said. Stacy was being abused by her own father. We don't know much about her father until the end, because in the beginning she told Alex that he was dead. I think she probably did that because maybe she wanted her father dead for all the terrible things that he did to her. This all reminded me of one of the quotes in the book that said 'Behind every lie there is still some bit of truth' (<-- that's a bit paraphrased, but still has the same meaning) So even though Stacy wasn't being abused by Simon, she WAS being abused.

At the end when I found out about Stacy's dad abusing her, I really felt bad for her, and for Alex too. Although Stacy lied about Simon abusing her, Alex believed that Stacy had a "reason" to say those things, but Alex on the other hand wasn't being abused, and yet her judgement was still being clouded. Alex must've felt really bad for going along with Stacy by incriminating Simon. Simon did not do those things that Stacy said he did, but because he made poor choices, I think Alex's mind wasn't the only one to blame. Alex, like any 8th grader with hormones, has to get confused about stuff like this some time, but in the book I guess she experienced these emotions on a more extreme level since they dealt with her teacher.

I think that this book really went into the point-of-view of Alex, and showed how her feelings changed on Simon. At times I felt that I was Alex, and kept thinking to myself about what to believe, and who was telling the truth. So yeah... this book was good.

Wow. That was long.