Customer Reviews

Darkness Before Dawn (Hazelwood High Trilogy (Thorndike))

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Keisha is the senior class president of her high school. She had been going through some really difficult times the past year when her ex-boyfriend unexpectedly kills himself. The principal's 23 year old son is the new trak coach and he has his eye on Keisha. Slowly Keisha begins to find comfort in 23 year old Johnatan. Her parents and friends think there is something strange about Keisha and Johnathans realationship. Keisha is happy and loves the way Johnathan treats her like a women and not a high schooler. So Keisha breaks her parents rules and continues to see him. Suddenly Keisha's relationship with Johnathan takes a turn for the worst. Johnathan takes Keisha to his appartment and when Keisha doesn't coperate with Johnathan's plans that's when the big trouble starts. He tries to rape Keisha and he attempts to kill her with his jack knife.

I highly recommend this book. It may be a little boring in the begining but once your get a little further into it, your hooked. It also has a great moral/lesson to it. Another thing it shows how sexual preditors can be anywhere and it can happen to anyone. I enjoyed reading this book and think its a great book for teenage girls to read.

Keisha Montgomery, a senior at Hazelwood High School, has lurked in nothing but darkness since the death of her friend Robby, and boyfriend Andy. It seems like the whole world is crashing down on her and she will be next to be eliminated by the darkness. She can't get over the pain, hurt, and guilt that has subsided her and for a long time she hasn't seen any light, hope, or happiness.

But then, Jonathan Hathaway, a twenty-year-old college student and son of Hazelwood High's principal, enters Keisha's life. Keisha is taken aback by this very handsome, sweet, poetic, and mature man who seems to charm her with every word. At first Keisha pays no mind to this man, thinking he is a mere college student who is too old for her anyway, but John seems truly interested in her. He is unlike the other high school boys-he's mature, writes poetry, and is interested in the same things Keisha is interested in. He looks at her a lot, always stops to speak with her, and is a gentleman to Keisha. Soon she realizes that Jonathan Hathaway is something different, something special, and something she can't afford to waste. Despite her parents' explicit disapproval, Keisha goes out to spend time with Jonathan. Her parents tell her that he is too old, and after the first time it is the last. But Keisha lies to her parents and goes out with him anyway. Keisha's parents truly love her, and she is precious and not quite grown yet although she's eighteen, but Keisha uses her age as an excuse to do whatever she wants. She is blind to what can happen when alone with an older man she doesn't know the truth about.

What adds to the superbness of this book is how Keisha's friends and family all give warning signs about Jonathan. Leon, the boy with the crush on Keisha, doesn't like Jonathan because he's "too nice with younger girls". Jalani, Keisha's newest friend, constantly warns Keisha about Jonathan. Keisha's parents inform her that she's young and vulnerable and Jonathan may not be safe, but Keisha doesn't want to listen to anybody. The constant disapproval by Keisha's peers and family intimates that Jonathan is not what Keisha thinks he is and that soon Keisha will realize her peril.

Once again, Keisha Montgomery plunges into darkness. She falls into a trap and doesn't realize how much danger she's in. She can't believe how stupid she must have been to trust Jonathan Hathaway's seemingly caring personality, which is totally fake and an act to get Keisha into the situations he has placed many young girls. Why does Keisha fall into darkness? Does she ever get out? Does she ever see the light? Find out by reading this exceptional novel, Darkness Before Dawn, by Sharon M. Draper.

Keisha is a student in high school. Her ex-boyfriend has just committed suicide. She is trying to cope with this tragedy. Her friends are a great help. She really starts to come around when the principals son, Jonathon takes interest in her. She wants to go out with him but he is 21 and she is 18. Her parents are not to keen on the idea of Keisha dating someone three years older than her. They give in when Jonathon takes several students on a ski trip. Afterwards he calls her every night. The Valentine's Dance is coming up and Jonathon has something special planned. Keisha knows her parents will not allow her to go alone with Jonathon so she goes with a friend. Then she pretends she has a headache and he takes her home. Shortly after Jonathon picks her up to take her out to eat. Keisha is expecting a nice restaurant. Where she ends up and what happens next are not what she anticipated. To find out, read the book.

This is the sequel to Tears of a Tiger and Forged by Fire. If you enjoyed these books, then Darkness before Dawn is a must read. This book is recommended for young adolescents due to issues that Keisha deal with.

This story is told from first person or from the main character Keisha. Keisha recollects the darkness that has happened in her life from her junior to senior year. She is trying to cope with the death of her ex-boyfiend Andy, while in the process trying to discover who she is. She finds herself attactive to the principal's son, Jonathan who is doing observations at her school.
Keisha deceives her parents by going out with Jonathan against their wishes. She finds herself in a position in which she has to deal with. Jonathan wants more from her sexually than she wanted to give. Keisha manages to escape but is forced to overcome the fear. With help of her friends, Keisha manages to pull through by looking what the future entails for her.
I think this is a great book to read!!! It is a good follow-up book for "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson. This book deals with typical issues that teens deal with today. There is no language nor nudity presented in this book. Nor is the moral in the book preached but simply presented. The characters are well developed and true-to-life. It is a "must to read" book!

In the book a girl named Keisha has just lost her boyfriend. Andy killed himself because he and his best friends Rob, Tyrone, and B.J were in a car accident. Rob was the only one that didn't make it out of the car and he burned to death. Andy felt that it was his fault so he walked around with all this on his shoulders until he killed himself. Keisha had just broken up with Andy because of all his problems. That summer Keisha took Andy's little brother with her to the cookout. The cookout was something that the high school does every year and the students come and bring their little brothers and sisters. This summer, Keisha saw a guy that she thought was hot, so the summer passed and the new school year came. When she saw him, she acted as if she hadn't noticed him, but she did and she really liked him. At the same time, Leon liked her but she really had not paid any attion to that until one day she gave him a ride home and his dad started to say all this embracing stuff. So the conflict is she has to choose a boy (Leon) or a man (Jonathan).

I chose this book because I read the first book and I liked it, so I just continued to read them. No one recommended it to me but when I first started everyone would say that's a good book. I chose the book because I read the back. I like the author cause she knows how to express her feelings.

I would recommend this book to any one in high school and middle school. This book is really good but at first it is boring but it gets good in the middle I feel as though it gets good and you can relate to the emotion. It was easy to read cause she is just out in the open. She doesn't make things that are simple so confusing. The end was good. I was satisfied with the resolution.

Hello all!

I am a high school teacher whose favorite genre within YA is realistic YA set in the inner city. My students really liked Forged by Fire, which I never got to read, but I picked this one up and abandoned it really fast.

Here are my reasons.

--The writing is just not skillful.
--The descriptions are all simple or compound sentences and they sound very simple.
--The dialogue is completely unrealistic.
--I'm wondering if Draper has ever been around urban teens, and actually heard their speech. No one in the world speaks in complete sentences--it got old really fast.
--The situations could have been realistic but just way too dramatic.
--I felt like the author thought that I was stupid or slow, or just didn't care enough to treat me to the vivid descriptions of life in the inner city or the cadences of the speech of real Black kids in the inner city.

I do have to give the author credit for the following:
--trying hard
--seeming to care about her characters
--writing a story with a good moral, which will reach a lot of inner-city teens
--she won the Coretta Scott King award. I personally don't like her writing style, but a lot of people do, and for that, she should be given credit.

If you want to read a well-written urban novel, I really recommend anything by Sharon G. Flake (if you want the G/PG rated stuff,) and The Hoopster, Hip-Hop High School, and Homeboyz by Alan Lawrence Sitomer, or Tyrell by Coe Booth, if you don't mind your kid reading the PG-13/R rated stuff, also, if your kid is at least 16 and you don't mind there being some sexuality, drug use, etc in the books they read, I recommend Always Running. Hope my review helped.

Darkness Before Dawn by Sharon Draper is an estatic book with endless mysteries, and discoveries. Keisha Montgomery is a senior at Hazelwood High still trying to get over her ex-boyfriends death, that's when she meets twenty-three-year-old Jonathan Hathway, the principals son. But after all the sneaking around Keisha finds out something unexpecting about Jonathan that she never thought she would discover. Will Keisha be able to return back to reality? And will she be ever to get herself out of the dark? In this book Sharon Draper, is trying to say that no matter what happens, you can always make it through the worst, only Keisha finds out the hard way.

The book tath Iam reading is called Darkness Before Dawn and it's about a girl named Keisha and her friends.Keisha seems to be very confused because her old boyfriend Andy killed himself,and she starts to date a 23year o;d named Johnathan hathaway the principal's son.Keisha attendends Halzewood High in Cincinatti,Ohio and she's 18years old.The 23yearold that keisha's dating is a rapist but she dosen't know it.He tries to attack Keisha but she fights back. The reason why I like this book is because of the realism, things that happened in this book also happens everyday in real life.Ialso liked this book because of the characters.I can relate to some of them and they seem like people I would like to be my friends.Another reason thst I liked this book is because of the fast pace.It wasn't boring at all.This book made me express my anger when someone did something wrong and sad when Keisha got attacked.Irecommed this book to everybody to read.This was a good book especially for young people.

before i read this book, i didnt have a clue as to what type of things guys can do out there in the world. When Kiesha thought Jonathan was the cure for her problems, i thought she was right. but when i read on, i was obviously wrong. I took advice from this book such as me now listening to my parents and friends thoughts and feelings. a couple of weeks before i read this book, i had ran off with an 18 year old, and im only 12. my mom was hurt when she found out. i felt alful and now i know how keisha's mom and dad felt. when Edna showed up and saved Kiesha after she ran out of Jonathans apartment, i knew that if you helped someone, then they will show up and help you. i loved this book and sharon m. draper. i hope to one day be as good as a writer as her. r.i.p andy

Do you think all teenagers act the same way and go through the same issues? I didn't think so until I read Darkness Before Dawn (2001) By Sharon M. Draper. This story is about a group of teenagers who are in their last year of high school. The main character is a young lady name Keisha who is a senior in high school. I can relate to her because I am a young lady in high school who faces many problems just like the ones Keisha faced. She stays with her mother and father, who love her very much. She has close friends that she has known for a long time. Some of their names are Angel, Gerald, and Jalani. Everything was good until she started to talk to an older man named Jonathan. She began to date him and they went out a few times. That is when things began to go wrong.

I like this book because teenagers can relate to it and know they are not alone. The only problem with this book is that it is the last in a series of books. You will first need to read two of her books called Tears Of A Tiger and Forged By Fire, also by Sharon M. Draper, to get a good understanding of this story. This is not the best of the three, but it is the second best compared to the other to the other two books. This is a book for 7th through twelfth grader to read. I recommend this book to young ladies all around the world.

I believe that there is a lot their for them to learn. This story can teach you to think about what you are doing and why sometimes you might think that it is right but it could be wrong. Keisha really thought that Jonathan was a nice young men and wasn't too old for her. She didn't care what no one said, the see seen that she should have listen to everyone. Overall this is a great story for teenagers' girls to read because I know that most teens don't like to read. Once you begin with Forged By Fire you will want to read the other two books non stop. This is a great story; all kids can relate to it in their own way. Everyone can relate to this book, because everyone would take it a different way. Some people might think that the problems happen because of one person- other people might think the problems happen were because of someone else. This book has more then one meaning. That is why it is a great book.

By A.B