Sara’s moods are dependent on the actions of others. Sara is in denial about the severity and cruelty of her actions. Sara is weak and powerless in her own life, both at home and at school. Tease is Sara’s story, and we hear it from her. By the second time period, the end of the summer after her junior year, all of those elements have combined into a nightmare which leaves one child dead by her own hand while another, including Sara, being held responsible.

She also has two younger brothers for whom she is responsible for quite a bit of the time (since the divorce, she has picked up the childcare slack since her mother works full time), a passive, insecure personality and a tendency to allow her forceful BFF to dictate her actions. She has a senior boyfriend, a super popular best friend and seems like the kind of girl who Has It All. The first is the winter of her junior year in high school. We focus on two periods of time with our main character Sara. That’s a big task to take on in a slim YA novel, but Maciel gives it her all. In doing so she sheds a lot of light on why we have the problem and even offers a glimpse of hope that we might make our children safer in their schools and homes. In Tease, author Amanda Maciel puts both the bully and the situation that created her front and center, defying society’s wish to only look at the victims and clutch our pearls. For all our righteous anger, no one seems to have the answer to how to stop a bully – and no one seems to be willing to admit that adolescence is simply sheer hell, no matter who you are.

Their cruelty makes you cringe, their pranks fill you with outrage, and sometimes, they feel uncomfortably familiar. They are on your children’s computer, in their schools, on their cell phones and in their heads.

Tease by Amanda Maciel