Sticky Fingers [Paperback]

Niki Burnham (Author), Rodrigo Corral (Designer)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 23, 2005

Busting my a   makes me feel good.

Bulletproof, that's how Jenna Kassarian sees herself. It's all about control: As long as she works hard, nothing can hurt her. So Jenna constantly pushes -- for perfect grades, the ideal boyfriend, the best, best friend.

The only problem is, she doesn't know if she can stop. If she relaxes even for a second, she's afraid she'll lose control completely.

Then Jenna decides it's now or never. She goes to a party and has one drink. But one drink is all it takes for her perfect facade to shatter. Suddenly she realizes straight A's can't protect you in the real world.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up–Jenna receives Early Action admission to Harvard just before Christmas break of her senior year. Her boyfriend, Scott, thinks it's the perfect time for her to let loose–literally–and have sex with him. Though she is in love with him, Jenna knows she's not ready. Meanwhile, her friend Courtney is acting out of character, shoplifting, lying, and losing too much weight. Jenna also notices that Courtney and Scott are spending time together without her and she overhears heated arguments between them. The suburban Massachusetts setting is just right but the first-person narrative grows tedious as Jenna frets copiously about Courtney and Scott's behavior. The action moves slowly and uneventfully until Scott slips a date-rape drug into Jenna's drink. At this point, the mood goes quickly from frivolous to grave and the neat epilogue doesn't fit the severity of Jenna's trauma. As in Patrick Jones's Things Change (Walker, 2004), the intended message is that even smart girls can be fooled by abusers or rapists. Though Jenna is sharper and more likable than Jones's protagonist, her Harvard acceptance is a cheap symbol of the intelligence that is never shown in her thoughts. The frothy dialogue and tongue-in-cheek prose are better suited to Burnham's teen romances than to this consciously serious and issue-driven story.–Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 9-12. From the cover photo (a boy wrapped around his girlfriend, her hand grazing his butt), one might get the wrong idea about what the title refers to. But no--heroine Jenna's best friend, Courtney, is a shoplifter. And although the petting sessions in the story may raise a few eyebrows, the ironic crux of the tale is that Jenna doesn't have enough sex in her life. She's a Harvard-bound senior with goals, but she's distracted by her boyfriend's pressure to have intercourse. Scott appears to be a terrific guy who supports Jenna's decisions about sex, so it's a surprise when he drops a roofie in her drink. Burnham tries to have it both ways--providing titillation but also taking the moral high ground in an author's note about date-rape drugs. There's much that's unbelievable (Courtney doesn't reveal that Scott has been trying to get the drug, and he gets into Harvard despite his arrest). Yet the voices are authentic, the concerns are real, and Jenna comes across as a girl whose confidence shows her what's right for her. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 274 pages
• Publisher: Simon Pulse; Original edition (August 23, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689876491
• ISBN-13: 978-0689876493
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #547,522 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awsome Book, August 27, 2005

By 

Book Worm "cutiethepooh" (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sticky Fingers (Paperback)

This book was great. It wasn't anything like I thought it would be. It is about a srong, smart girl that has the perfect boyfriend and the perfect friend. But everything starts to change, she thinks her friend is stealing and lying, her boyfriend is pushing for sex. She starts to doubt herself. And she can't seem to relax, even though she got into Harvard. You have to read this book. It was a wonderful book and I read it in 2 days.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sticky Fingers, August 23, 2005

By 

Jeanne "avid teen reader" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sticky Fingers (Paperback)

I've read some of Niki Burnham's other books, but this one was by far the best. It has everything a good story should have. The characters were relatable and the plot kept me guessing. I recommend this book to mature 13 and up, because the book dealt alot with the pressures that high schoolers experience. I read this book in a few hrs. This novel is great- so definitely read it!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, December 23, 2006

By 

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

This review is from: Sticky Fingers (Paperback)

Jenna Kassarian strives to have everything in her life exactly how she wants it--perfect. She has the perfect boyfriend, the perfect friend, and the perfect grades that got her into the top college of her choice. Jenna enjoys working hard because, in the end, it actually pays off. Now that everything seems to be going her way, and it's her last year of high school, all she wants to do, well, actually all her boyfriend wants her to do, is relax and enjoy life. Unfortunately for Jenna, relaxing just isn't in her vocabulary.

So now Jenna is trying her best to let go and have fun. That's not at all possible if what she has worked for has started to change. Her best friend is beginning to act weird and her boyfriend is pressuring her even more for their "first time". Along with that, it seems like her best friend is keeping something from her, something that just might have to do with Jenna's boyfriend.

But all Jenna needs to do is fix the problems around her. Change everything back to the way things were before. Easy, right? Well, when Jenna finally decides to let loose for once, things start to tumble around her and the people that she thought she knew turn out to be her downfall.

Different from all her other works, Niki Burnham's novel STICKY FINGERS has a message that the reader won't know about until the very end. STICKY FINGERS is a novel that everyone should read and take into consideration. Even though the novel is fictional, the ending is the truth and could happen to anyone.

Reviewed by: Randstostipher "tallnlankyrn" Nguyen