Learning Seventeen

by Brooke Carter

New Hope Academy, or, as seventeen-year-old Jane Learning likes to call it, No Hope, is a Baptist reform school where Jane is currently being held captive.

Of course, smart, sarcastic Jane has no interest in reforming, failing to see any benefit to pretending to play well with others. But then Hannah shows up, a gorgeous bad girl with fiery hair and an even stormier disposition. She shows Jane how to live a full and fulfilling life even when the world tells you you're wrong, and how to believe in a future outside the "prison" walls. Jane soon learns, though, that Hannah is quietly battling some demons of her own.

Genres: LGBT, Young Adult, Fiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 16, 2018

About the author

Brooke Carter is the author of several books, including The Stone of Sorrow, Another Miserable Love Song, Learning Seventeen, Lucky Break, The Unbroken Hearts Club, Double or Nothing, Sulfur Heart, Star-Eaters, Ghost Girl, and the forthcoming sequel Ghost Girl: The Other Side.

Reviews

[Liralen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read a few of these Orca Soundings books (which are targeted towards readers who are old enough to handle complex themes but are not confident readers), and while I like the concept (concepts, actually, plural—I like the idea of the line, and the reason I've read multiple books in the line is that they've regularly hit my reading interests), they almost uniformly feel too short to me. It's a lot of plot for a very short book: opens with Jane in a religious reform school* because her stepmother can't cope with Jane being gay; Jane's in the school for a while before she runs away; she spends some time crashing on couches and generally spiralling downwards; shit hits the fan and she ends up back at the reform school; she meets the Love Interest; there's a montage-style whirl through their romance; Love Interest leaves; family things come to a head for Jane; things come to a head with the Love Interest. Some of it works really well, but other parts (the ending!) feel pretty thin.

*Is it a reform school? It's described as such, but there are also a lot of students who are there voluntarily, so it might be more like...a strict religious (Baptist) school that takes some students whose parents think they're trouble.

[Paul Coccia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Broke Carter's "Learning Seventeen" is part of the Orca Soundings hi-lo series (high interest, low literacy). The book is written for young adults who want interesting subject matter while honing their literacy skills. The high, in this case, should also stand for high quality as Brooke Carter sets a standard for what this sub-genre of YA fiction can do.

"Learning Seventeen" is fast-paced, emotionally resonant, smart, wry novel about 17-year-old Jane Learning, a lesbian sent to religious reform school to cure her 'evil' ways. Jane desperately tries to find answers and fixes for her life in self-destructive ways - drugs, running away, theft, casual hookups - to deal with her parents' failed marriage, mother's abandonment, and her new stepmother's condemnation and judgment. Brooke Carter does not shy away from difficult subject matter but meets it head on and makes it entirely relatable and understandable even if Jane could be deemed a girl who went off the rails... but there is so much more depth and emotional intelligence in Jane that shines through her tough shell that is padded with a history of pain. Jane is smart, sarcastic, tough, admirable. When Jane meets Hannah a "cinematic" redhead who could be a movie star, Jane sees that maybe there's more than her past, maybe Jane is more than her past, maybe there's love and a future and a redhead named Hannah and possibility to be had. Jane's journey is compelling and gritty with sentences and scenes that are as stunning as the main character.

[Alana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a terrible hi-lo.

[Hanne Schutte · Rating 2 out of 5]

Raar boekje

[Esmee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Echt raar... Open einde... 🤬🤬🤬

[Elizabeth]

Queer hi-lo.