cover image Jump

Jump

Ginger Rue, Random/Tricycle, $15.99 (216p) ISBN 978-1-58246-334-6

Callous and ruthless Brinkley Harper has almost everything a girl could want: rich parents, beauty, popularity, and a boyfriend who makes “nice arm candy.” But her mean-girl antics have caused four girls to transfer schools, and Brinkley is forced to get therapy or be expelled; she doesn’t count on being assigned a therapist who gives Brinkley a supernatural dose of her own medicine. In a whimsical tale of transformation, Rue (Brand New Emily) explores what happens when Brink­ley’s spirit enters the bodies of some less pampered peers, like a goth with an abusive stepfather, or a mercilessly teased overweight girl, or a Korean exchange student. It doesn’t take long for Brinkley to understand the error of her ways, and Rue tends to hit readers over the head (“Brinkley had never before realized that she attached her allure to something beyond her long thin legs, tiny waist, and pretty face.... It was like she’d been fed a steady diet of lies since she was old enough to read princess stories”) as Brink­ley’s inevitable and too tidy change of heart unfolds. Ages 12–up. (Sept.)