Headlong [Hardcover]

Kathe Koja (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 28, 2008

What sets Vaughn apart is the quality of our girls. We do draw from all over, girls from every kind of background, girls for whom Vaughn is a major life experience. And not every girl is the right girl for Vaughn. You can often tell, early on, who these girls are.

 

The Vaughn School. Home of domed ceilings, gleaming checkerboard floors, and the Vaughn Virgins: the upper stratum of girls who have perfect grades, perfect lives, and perfect friends. Lily Noble is a lifer – she knows all the rules. Then sophomore year, Hazel Tobias arrives as a scholarship student, with her model’s looks and unconventional family, and shows Lily everything she’s been missing. Can you ever fit in someplace you don’t want to be? As Lily befriends Hazel, both girls discover what it means to dive deep beneath the surface – of friendship, of commitment – and to live life with all their hearts, with all they are, headlong.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—Sophomore Lily Noble, a privileged, private school "lifer," feels that she no longer fits at Vaughn, her academic home since preschool. Her parents agree to let her board there to see if she can sort things out. In the process, she befriends Hazel Tobias, a transfer scholarship student who challenges her to look at the school, her family, and her friends through new lenses. Lily is intrigued both by Hazel's attitudes and by her very different life circumstances-she was orphaned at age three, raised by her then-teenaged gay brother, and has jumped from school to school. Lily virtually disowns the life she has always known and goes in search of herself, entering Hazel's world. Koja's well-paced novel invites readers into the world of elite boarding schools. Narrated by Lily, the story is juxtaposed with personal reflections about the vagaries of the Vaughn experience as seen through the eyes of some of the secondary characters. Six of the chapters are told in flashback, referring to the months prior to the June Convocation, while the final episode propels the story into the following academic year. Thus, it is possible to see in retrospect the changes in the girls' relationships and the decisions that they both ultimately make. This is an excellent character study of both Lily and Hazel and an in-depth look at how real friendships demand a soul-searching dive beneath the nature of one's own feelings while trying to understand the complexity of another's.—Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, formerly at LaSalle Academy, Providence, RI
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Sophomore Lily Noble is ensconced at traditional Vaughn school when punk-rockish orphan Hazel Tobias transfers into its preppy realm of beer, sex, pot, and privilege. Lily is drawn to Hazel’s unconventional life and family, and the teens quickly form a strong friendship. Koja once again explores the recurring theme that there is more to school than grades. Here, though, issues such as forming unusual friendships and pushing back against parents’ expectations become somewhat muddied in the stream-of-consciousness style and confusing flashbacks. The characters experiment with less-than-innocent behavior, but their attempts at outright teen rebellion are ultimately innocuous. The luxury-brand name-dropping is not too overwhelming, and the use of explicit language is relatively mild. Teen girls passing through a tentative dark and edgy phase will dive in and claim this book as their own. Grades 9-12. --Andrew Medlar

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 195 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR); 1st edition (October 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374329125
• ISBN-13: 978-0374329129
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,810,355 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good story, April 11, 2009

By 

Kelly H (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Headlong (Hardcover)

Summary: Lily Noble has always gone to private school. In her sophomore year, a misfit named Hazel shows up and makes Lily rethink the way she's been doing things her whole life.

Review: The back-and-forth nature of this book took a little time for me to get used to. The chapters alternate between snippets from the beginning of the school year and the end of the year. A few times, I got confused about whether it was a "later" chapter or a "before" chapter, but I chalk that up to my own work-induced lack of sleep during the week I was reading this one.

I liked that this book doesn't hit you over the head with what Lily's feeling. You have to work out on your own what's going on with her.

I also liked how Lily--who's always just gone with the flow--finally changes course and questions the ways of her affluent world.

Not a standout for me, but still an enjoyable read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, January 19, 2009

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Headlong (Hardcover)

Lily Noble has been attending the Vaughn School since pre-K as a day student. She has been discontent with her life there. To try to appease her, Lily's parents decide to let Lily be a boarder at school sophomore year. Thinking the change will help Lily's restlessness, Lily moves into the dorm. She is stuck with a roommate that has severe allergies and is overwhelmed with the pressures of life at Vaughn.

Lily notices the new girl, Hazel Tobias, in her Lit class. Hazel speaks out to the teacher in an argumentative tone, something Lily would never think to do. One evening while Lily is hanging out with her friends, Hazel approaches her, looking for a cigarette. When Lily encounters Hazel alone late at night in the dorm common room, the two start a hesitant conversation.

From that one conversation, the two form a friendship that the rest of Lily's friends can't comprehend.

Lily has gone through the motions of life at Vaughn. Even before Hazel's arrival, Lily was dissatisfied with her current situation. Her mom went to Vaughn and her dad never said much about her schooling. But once she gets to know Hazel, as much as Hazel will let her in, Lily starts to define herself. She questions her relationship with her boyfriend. She confronts her so-called friends. She changes her accessories.

Hazel doesn't want to be there, but on the surface, she seems to embrace the world that is Vaughn. But when Lily goes home with Hazel on Christmas break, she gains more insight into who Hazel really is.

The book unfolds during the course of the girls' sophomore year. Jumping back and forth from the end of the term to the current month, the reader gets a glimpse of the struggles going on in Lily's head. The reader has to wonder if the changes Lily goes through happened because of Hazel or simply coincided with her arrival.

Reviewed by: Jaglvr

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Your Typical Boarding School Novel, December 23, 2011

By 

E. Kristin Anderson "EKAnderson" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Headlong (Hardcover)

Not your typical boarding school tale of hook-ups and hijinx, Headlong is the story of Lily Noble, a lifer at Vaughn - a school known for its "Vaughn Virgin" social elite. Lily has always fit in with the girls at school - the pretty ones with perfect grades and wealthy families. But then Hazel comes to Vaughn on scholarship, bringing her alternative family, her hot cherry licorice, and punk-rock style. Soon Lily is drifting away from her old friends, and as she spends more time with Hazel, she comes to realize she's never truly known herself.

This coming of age story will surprise you, with characters as malleable and honest as real teenagers, and poetic writing perfectly in touch with the experience of finding one's identity. Headlong will stay with you long after you've put the book down, and it is an absolutely worthwhile experience.