Book Review: Virginia by Susan Hughes

Virginia
by Susan Hughes
Non-series

Kids Can Press
ISBN-10: 1-55453-306-6
ISBN-13: 978-1-55453-306-0
Publication Date: March, 2010
List Price: $17.95

Review: Love, faith, secrets. That’s what Virginia is all about. Virginia is a heart-warming story with everything a good story needs. Virginia is a stand-alone book, written by Susan Hughes. The main characters are Ivy, a freshman in high school, Virginia, also a freshman in high school, Joe, a senior in high school, and Paul, a 23-year-old man who is the older brother of both Virginia and Joe. Ivy is basically Virginia’s best friend. If you want to hear more about them then read the review, or better yet, the book!

Ivy hasn’t talked to Virginia for a while. Everything got complicated after Virginia’s father passed away and her mom lost the baby. But, Virginia calls Ivy one day, asking if she could have Ivy over because she needs to tell her something important. So when they get together, Virginia tells Ivy that she has been visited by an angel and asked to have God’s child. Ivy is shocked. She thinks Virginia is hallucinating, or might have had something traumatic happen to her. Then, as she’s going to her house, to go back home, Joe runs into Ivy, literally, and she almost crashes to the ground, and she would have, if Joe hadn’t caught her. This is when she first discovers she might just like him. Later during the story, Ivy discovers Paul may just be trying to do something bad, really bad, because he thinks it will help God with the end of the world, when all the Christians die and go to heaven with all the nonbelievers stuck on earth, realizing how much it stinks to be stuck without the religious people.

This is a great book and I WISH it was in a series for me to read. The characters are great and very thought out. The plot all lead up to the ending, which is like a curveball. It threw me totally off guard; you always think this will happen, but, the ending is not what you think it should be. It’s amazing. It also has some really cool rhymes that help guide the story. They are very cool and I like to write them on post-it notes to remember them. It’s a dramatic, suspenseful story that has an ordinary girl drawn into some not so ordinary events. Not only will you question their beliefs, but yours as well. Ivy is a teenager, just starting freshman year, ready to make a bunch of friends and join the cross-country team of her school and then this phenomenon happens. Virginia is a quite girl who just keeps to herself, guarded by her older brothers and sisters, and Joe is a nice fun-loving guy. Finally, Paul seems mesmerizing and seems to draw you in, like he hypnotizes you. So, if you are stuck in a boring position with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling, groaning in the emotional pain of being bored, pick up Virginia. You will instantaneously get out of that slump and hooked to Virginia like a fish on a fishing hook.

Review written by Amanda (6th grade student).

We would like to thank Raab Associates, Inc. for providing a copy of Virginia for this review.

Have you read Virginia? How would you rate it?