Thou Shalt Not Dump the Skater & other commandments I have broken [Hardcover]

Rosemary Graham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 20, 2005

Tall, blonde, and pretty, Kelsey may look like a perfect California girl, but she doesn’t feel like one.That is, until she starts dating a popular skater dude named C. J. Logan. But after a while, the life of a skater girlfriend begins to wear on Kelsey, and she decides to go it alone. C. J. doesn’t take being dumped lightly, and he starts spreading rumors about Kelsey. Now Kelsey has to save her reputation and work on building her new identity—as a star reporter for the school’s prestigious newspaper.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8-10–In My Not-So-Terrible Time at the Hippie Hotel (Viking, 2003), three girls meet during a retreat at a Cape Cod inn. While that novel focuses on Tracy, this new offering tells Kelsey's story. Following her parents' divorce, she moves from Boston to California with her mother and younger brother. After spending eighth grade as an outcast at a small private school, she convinces her parents to let her attend public high school. Tall, blond, and pretty, Kelsey hits the social jackpot when C.J. Logan, a well-known skateboarder, picks her for his girlfriend. At first, being with C.J. is fun, but Kelsey eventually realizes that the relationship is all about him and his ego. When she dumps him at the end of the school year, he retaliates by saying nasty things about her on his blog. To live down her reputation and find her real self, Kelsey joins the superachievers on the school newspaper in the fall. When she realizes that even her brother can read the venom that C.J. is spewing on the Internet, she confronts him and receives an apology and his promise to delete his lies about her. Like Hippie Hotel, this is a story of girl power as Kelsey stands up for herself and takes charge of her life. While the strong feminist message is great, there is not much new here; issues and characters are fairly stereotypical. Still, Kelsey's breezy, edgy, often-wry voice captures high school life and will appeal to fans of teen romances.–Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 7-10. Although she is tall, blonde, and pretty, Kelsey has been miserable of late. Her parents are divorced, and her mom has moved from Boston to Berkeley, taking Kelsey with her. Things look up, though, during Kelsey's freshman year, when she makes new friends and starts dating skateboarding champion C. J. Logan, the campus hunk and celebrity. Then Kelsey's world turns upside down again. Irritated with C. J.'s skateboarding obsession, she breaks up with him, and furious C. J. posts a rant on his blog, stating that he broke up with Kelsey because "the girl is a total sex fiend." Many young women will enjoy this light-handed, anti-romance and will cheer for Kelsey as she stands up for herself and learns that her worth and enjoyment of life are not tied to a boyfriend. Like its predecessor, My Not-So-Terrible Time at the Hippie Hotel (2003), this title rolls along with clever humor and clearly stated morals. Despite C. J.'s accusation, Kelsey's romantic interludes are PG-13 and perfectly appropriate for middle-school as well as high-school readers. Debbie Carton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Viking Juvenile; 1st Edition 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 edition (October 20, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670060178
• ISBN-13: 978-0670060177
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,000,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining to read, January 13, 2006

By 

Gary H. Cassel "Flamingnet Teen Book Reviews" (Baltimore, MD, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thou Shalt Not Dump the Skater & other commandments I have broken (Hardcover)

Kelsey has just been forced to move all the way from Boston to California during the worst time in her life, the beginning of 8th grade. She completes her year at a prestigious Private all-girls school and realizes that she doesn't want to deal with snotty girls anymore. She decides to go to the public school, where she instantly gets recognized by the school celebrity, skateboarder C.J. Logan. Not long after, she becomes his girlfriend and gets to experience the perks of being popular. When Kelsey realizes that C.J. isn't putting in enough effort to be a good boyfriend, she dumps him after a year. But there's only one problem, C.J. has never been dumped before. So he spreads rumors about Kelsey around school and makes her miserable. But Kelsey tries to ignore them and becomes interested in the famed school newspaper, the Bee, and puts all her effort into making it as a journalist. When the rumors still affect her life one year later, Kelsey has to do something to stand up for herself before it's too late.

I was surprised at how much I liked this book. While I feel that younger teens would enjoy this book more, it was still entertaining to read. It was refreshing to read about a character like Kelsey. The story was really interesting too, even though the concept of a high school romance is common in many young adult books these days. I'd recommend this book as a fun, easy read to take your mind off things. The ending of the story made me want to know more. I don't know if the author is planning to write a sequel, but I know that I will probably pick up any other book that she writes.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, May 17, 2007

By 

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

This review is from: Thou Shalt Not Dump the Skater Dude (Splashproof edition) (Paperback)

Kelsey just can't believe that her mother would decide to up and leave Boston and take Kelsey and her brother along to Berkeley, California, just so she could follow her dreams of going to law school. Except that, for her mother, it seemed like the perfect chance after the divorce was final. Sure, Kelsey may look like a character on The O.C., but she sure doesn't feel right at home in California.

She just wished that her mother would have moved them after her middle school years and before her high school years. And Kelsey has good reason, since when she starts out as an 8th-grader at Susan B. Anthony, it's just way too hard to make friends. Especially when there are only twenty kids in her grade, that have known each other since forever, and have established their own cliques.

But then Kelsey's life begins to pick up some momentum when she starts going out with C.J. Logan, the popular skateboarder. Yet even this doesn't feel right to Kelsey, since when dating C.J., it's all about him, all the time. So Kelsey does what any normal girl would do when it just isn't working out - she breaks up with C.J. Unfortunately, this proves costly toward her reputation. And so now Kelsey has her sights on something much bigger: becoming a reporter for her school newspaper. Well, that and a different boy to crush on.

THOU SHALT NOT DUMP THE SKATER DUDE AND OTHER COMMANDMENTS I HAVE BROKEN is just full of tricks and flips that every teenager goes through. Rosemary Graham cooks up a hilarious novel that teaches us how to ignore all the drama and move on with your life by finding something else to do (getting in a little revenge along the way). Kelsey becomes a heroine to all and you just can't help but want the best for her.

Reviewed by: Randstostipher "tallnlankyrn" Nguyen

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An appealing book about life after a breakup, December 16, 2005

By 

Teenreads.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thou Shalt Not Dump the Skater & other commandments I have broken (Hardcover)

Pretty and blond, Kelsey looks the part of the perfect popular girl. But Kelsey's life is far from perfect. She is new in town, misses her old home, and is finding it difficult to make new friends. Then she meets C. J. Logan, who is cute, popular, and a professional skateboarder.

Life with C. J. is everything Kelsey imagined it to be. She finds herself part of an envied inner circle. But her entire life revolves around C. J. and his skateboarding competitions. After a romantic date interrupted by C. J. showing off his moves to some kids they meet downtown, Kelsey decides she no longer wants to live in C. J.'s shadow. She dumps him just before summer vacation, not prepared for what she will find when she returns to school the next year.

Kelsey is now a misfit. None of her old friends talk to her anymore. She discovers that C. J. has posted cruel lies about her in his blog, which the entire school reads. THOU SHALT NOT DUMP THE SKATER DUDE is about how Kelsey rebuilds her life after C. J., and forges a life worth calling her own.

A stand-alone companion to MY NOT-SO-TERRIBLE TIME AT THE HIPPIE HOTEL, the strongest points of the book are Kelsey's relationship with her family and with her best friend: the hipster vegan, Amy. As it spans almost three years, the book is plot-driven with less attention given to the details of Kelsey's daily life.

Innocent and non-controversial, THOU SHALT NOT DUMP THE SKATER DUDE (AND OTHER COMMANDMENTS I HAVE BROKEN) is light on commandment breaking. Parents and teachers will appreciate its positive portrayal of self-esteem, while its light tone and the likable Kelsey will appeal to younger teen readers.

--- Reviewed by Sarah A. Wood