Customer Reviews

True Believer (Make Lemonade Trilogy)

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a story about growing up in poverty and the challenges of peer pressure, boys, school, gangs, drugs and a world that is not always kind. Many of those pressures appear in any girl's life, but it becomes even more challenging when financial resources are virtually non-existent, and the social stigma of poverty and a poor neighbourhood environment are major obstacles to overcome.

The character of La Vaughn is strong, vivid and dramatically portrayed. The message given in this book is to hold on to your dreams, work hard, get an eduation, believe in yourself and realize that one is only limited in attaining their goals by self-imposed restrictions. It may take time to achieve those goals, but nothing is impossible. This book is beautifully written and highly recommended reading for any girl who feels there may be a little of La Vaughn living somewhere deep inside her.

This book picks up the story of LaVaughn where "Make Lemonade" left off. It is written in the same free verse or open verse as Make Lemonade was.

It's a story of LaVaughn's struggle to rise above the past. It's chock full of symbolism. LaVaughn is a bird trying to free itself from the nest. She is a jellyfish that learns to adapt and "go on living when the odds are against it." She is a "Grammar Build Up" student who wants to learn how to properly use the word "whom."

She is a dichotomy among her friends. The boy she wants doesn't want her. She laughs to the boy who is interested in her. Her girlfriends "found" Jesus, whereas LaVaughn is seeking Jesus in her life. She looks to see God in the details while her friends don't want to look at the details becouse they are afraid of finding the devil.

In the end, LaVaughn celebrates her 16th birthday and is still looking forward to attending college, maybe becoming a nurse. She says, "I believe in the possibility of a possibility."

This is the kind of story you can cheer for. A book that has some hope in the future. It reminds me of "A Hope in the Unseen" by Suskind. I'll five it five stars and eagerly await the final tome to complete this trilogy.

I didn't much care for "Make Lemonade", but "True Believer" is one heck of a great read! I could not put it down! There is just so much about this book that reads true-to-life, it's hard for me to site examples. LaVaughn is now a real person to me, a complex young woman struggling to find herself in a very confusing time and place. Her waxing and waning relationship with her two best friends, and her (hopeful) beginning of romance with Jody, the handsome boy-next-door are perfectly tragic-comedic! And I just love the name of the religious group LaVaughn's friends join to maintain their virginity---Cross Your Legs for Jesus. Such warmth and humor and heartbreakingly realistic writing make this a book teens and young adults can easily relate to. And congratulations to Wolff for winning the National Book Award---this book deserves the honor.

I liked this book a lot. It kept me reading, I didn't ever want to put it down. It will keep you in suspense throughout the whole book.

Verna LaVaughn was a fifteen year old girl. She lives with her mother in a dirty little apartment in the slums of a city. They can't afford very many things. LaVaughn's mother works most of the day to support LaVaughn. She leaves in the morning and doesn't return home until late at night. They have a tough life, but they manage to get through it with their head held high.

When LaVaughn's childhood friend, Jody, moves back into the apartment building everything changes. Jody and LaVaughn find out that they have the same dream, to go to college. They find out that they have a lot in common and become very good friends all over again. Meanwhile, LaVaughn is already losing her two best friends, Annie and Myrtle. Then when LaVaughn's mother comes home with a new friend from work, Lester, everything only gets worse.

This was the best book I have read in a very long time. It almost seemed real!

No one is a faster detector of false prose than a young person, and no one less patient with anything that doesn't strike him or her as true. Young adult and children's literature has always had to be written with an ear for language. But actually writing books in free verse? Writing entire novels as extended narrative poetry? Well, yes. Virginia Euwer Wolff does just that in True Believer, which won the 2001 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

The sequel to Make Lemonade, True Believer is strong enough to stand alone. It is the story of LaVaughn's 15th year, her struggle to stay focused on getting to college despite the heartbreak she sees around her and the distraction of her own shifting relationships. Her mother has taken on more responsibilities at work; her two best friends have joined "Cross Your Legs for Jesus," and not even having seen the devastation that an unplanned pregnancy can wreak on a teen's life can stop her from thinking about one special young man.

The verse works better as a narrative device than as poetry. (A random example: "Their adults congratulated them/and put out a sign-up clipboard for joining/but I didn't write my name." p. 132) But LaVaughn has such integrity and the odds are so stacked against her that within the first 30 pages I forgot about the unusual format. Whether the verse works well as poetry or not becomes a moot point as LaVaughn's thoughts form an authentic and unforgettable story.

La Vaughn, a 15-year-old female teen living in a housing project, struggles with the everyday pressures of school in order not to become an inner city school statistic. Daily she has the challenge of surviving poverty, the constant threat of gangs, violence, drugs that have infested the neighborhood in which she lives. Fortunately, the close relationship with her moher has taught her high moral standards in hopes that she will be able to escape the housing projects and meet all the academic challenges that will secure her future goals of going to college.

La Vaughn is a very interesting character. Because of her character developement and the emotions she expresses she is such an independent, loving and hard working character. Virginia Euwer Wolff did a splendid job of developing her characters but especially the main character, La Vaughn. La Vaughn is a just one of the teens in the book. The special thing about her is that she has a strong mind but an even stronger will. She would like to succeed so she can get out of her unfortunate position. La Vaughn sees that with one choice you can slaughter your dreams forever.

I highly recommend the book True Believer by Virginia Euwer Wolff. If tells of he hardships of an urban teenager's life. The emotions that are felt in the book are sympathetic and intensely real. La Vaughn is positive that she will acquire her dream so she can escape her urban neighborhood. The story also shows how educational systems should not let disadvantaged students fall through the cracks. Education gives hope to dreams of a better life. You should read True Believer because it is remarkably real and colorful with emotion.

LaVaughn has "hopes for life and some love too and surprises." In this sequel to "Make Lemonade," plenty of surprises arrive and shift LaVaughn's relationships, as well as her beliefs. Her two best friends, Annie and Myrtle, become distant as their involvement with the Cross Your Legs for Jesus club increases. LaVaughn's Grammar Build-Up class fosters new friendships and a renewed resolve to go to college. She is determined not to let her attraction to Jody (a childhood friend) get in the way of her college plans--after all, he is on the same path. LaVaughn struggles with alternating disappointment and confusion about her relationship with Jody. Meanwhile, LaVaughn's single mother starts dating Lester, and LaVaughn feels conflicted, "wanting her to be happy but not wanting her to be happy with a man not my dad." LaVaughn tries to untangle her past, present, and future, and all the while, her teacher's refrain runs through her head: "we will rise to the occasion, which is life."

First person narration by LaVaughn provides realism and immediacy. Free verse is an effective way to express LaVaughn's dynamic character, as well as the ever-changing nature of a young adult's life in general. LaVaughn grows in maturity but is subject to lapses of naiveté; throughout, Wolff's tone is never condescending or sentimental. The "Make Lemonade Trilogy" could take place in any inner-city neighborhood, but readers need not live amongst poverty or violence in order to embrace the message of possibility and choice. Wolff's uplifting view of life is warm and sincere.

True Believer, Virginia Euwer Wolff's National Book Award winning novel in the Make Lemonade trilogy is a great work of fiction, one that I cannot recommend enough to both young and older readers. The narrative style that Wolff employs in this book is highly effective and refreshing (especially in comparison to other young adult novels). La Vaughn, the protagonist-narrator of the story is so captivating in all her sense-making introspection over life, love, longing, and learning. Out of the dozen excellent adult and young adult novels that I have read this summer, this is my absolute favorite. Not only would I like for my friends and family to read True Believer, but also I cannot wait to present the novel to my seventh graders this upcoming fall semester. I would like to say to Ms. Wolff: This is a truly beautiful book! I will do my best to share it widely.

I enjoyed Make Lemonade (the first book) and sought out this one, the second in the trilogy. This one was even better than the first! LaVaughn is fifteen now, and her life is changing as her best friends have discovered religion (Cross Your Legs for Jesus), her mom is dating after ten years of widowhood, and her childhood friend Jody (now gorgeously handsome) has moved back into her building. Her goal to get to college is stronger than ever, but obstacles keep popping up in her life, wearing her down, until she feels like she just can't take anymore. A wonderfully touching book filled with wry humor, Wolff succeeds once again with her poetic style of writing about teenage life. (I just hope the last book in the trilogy doesn't take another 8 years to write.)

This book is for ages 11 - 18. True Believer is a story about a girl going through the troubles of life. But when LaVaughn's friends, Myrtle and Annie, start ditching her for God she is set into this whirlwind of problems. Everyone thinks she is too uppity because she wants to go to college. She loses friends, gains friends, and mends ties. This typical teen is anything but. In her ghetto she is part of the 1% student body that is going to college.

Full of different kinds of beliefs; believing in herself, believing in God, and believing in others, True Believer questions things I never thought about questioning. True Believer is an inspirational story full of Hope. In fact it gives the reader hope, and makes them ask themselves if they are working as hard as LaVaughn. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the Make Lemonade Trilogy because I enjoyed reading True Believer so much. It left me wanting more, but with a feeling of ending. I was ready to let it go when I finished reading it only because Virginia Wolff let me be ready