Living on Impulse [Hardcover]

Cara Haycak (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 20, 2009

Mia Morrow is impulsive, plain and simple. While her friends are concerned with grades and colleges, Mia would rather focus on the things that make her happy - like chasing boys or snatching something off a department store shelf. No big deal, right? But then Mia gets caught shoplifting, and her thoughtless behavior doesn't just push her friends away, it gets her into a lot of trouble, too. In this eye-opening tale of friendships, family, and negative impulses, Cara Haycak subtly shows that the power to heal is within all of us, and it almost always starts with forgiveness.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9–11—Tenth-grader Mia Morrow chases thrills. She shoplifts, enjoying the rush, the anticipation, and the eventual steal. But things go wrong in her favorite department store. The new security system catches her on camera taking a pricey sandal. Instead of rescuing Mia, her mother makes her find a job to pay back the store. Work helps to stabilize Mia, even when things in her life start to go awful, and she decides that a change is in order. She will turn herself around instead of being a loser. While Impulse has a great message—be true to yourself and your potential, and never give up—there is very little that is redeeming about Mia for most of the book. While she does stop her thievery, she is still impulsive and a serial liar until nearly page 200. The only consistently nice thing about Mia is her relationship with her grandfather.—Melyssa Malinowski, Kenwood High School, Baltimore, MD
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Review

"Readers who stick with Mia until the end will be glad they did." --Publishers Weekly

"[A] stirring, smart, and affirming read." --Booklist

"Developed with realism, humor and insight, Mia's flawed character proves credible. Her transformation story brims with loss and forgiveness." --Kirkus

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Juvenile (August 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525421378
• ISBN-13: 978-0525421375
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,591,175 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Cara Haycak has been writing fiction for teens since 1995, when she earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Columbia University.

"When I decided to become a writer, I didn't think I'd write for teenagers. But what happened was that all my stories were about them, and after a while I realized it was because I still felt like a teenager myself.

I think a life on the edge is what teenagers seek. I write about young characters that push at the world that surrounds them, trying to move past or around boundaries, any which way they can.

Often my characters are surprised to discover their true selves in the most foreign of circumstances, and where the unwritten laws of the natural world change their way of thinking....Whether it's a young shoplifter who discovers life has meaning while working in a lab breeding flies, as in my new novel Living on Impulse, or a bookworm of a girl who is opened to mystical possibilities on a remote and primitive island, in my first book Red Palms."

Thanks for reading!