Mission Impossible

by Beth Goobie

Nominee, Governor General's Literary Award for Children's Literature - Text Jill Gilbert doesn't like the high school Lovely Legs Contest. For one thing, it's sponsored by the football team headed by her brother. For another, the school newspaper she writes for came up with the idea. But more important, it boils her blood that guys like her brother make so many assumptions about what girls like. So why does she end up entering the competition? Maybe for the same reason she tried out for the football team. Maybe for the same reason she's obsessed with the movie The Mission . Jill is nobody's pushover. Mission Impossible is a tough sensitive teen novel. Jill, the narrator, is wickedly funny and heartbreakingly honest as she wrestles with sexism in her school and demons in her head. She comes close to going over the edge in more ways than one but triumphs in a way she could never have predicted. Right now, though, she's stuck in a jungle of tangled thoughts and leg hairs on what seems like an impossible mission.

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Beth Goobie is best known for her quirky and dark young adult novels. She's published several of them, beginning in 1994. Her novel Before Wings won the Canadian Library Association's Young Adult Book Award in 2000, and was chosen by young readers for the Best Books list of the American Library Association.Much of the turmoil in Goobie's life has been laid bare in two books for adult readers, Scars of Light, which is autobiographical poetry, and The Only-Good Heart, a book of short stories. Both are built on the theme of cults, abuse, and emotional torture. They were, she says, both therapeutic for herself and a warning to others.

Reviews

[Chandni · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the writing in this book was really strange and stilted, I liked the story and all of the characters. Jill is a great character to read about and an admirable role model.