Betty's Friend Comments

What do you do when everything in your life goes to hell? Fifteen-year-old Julie Tyler is about to find out. A minor incident with a schoolmate unleashes a year of nonstop vicious lies, mean pranks, and academic sabotage. Two days before Christmas, her mother is diagnosed with a very serious form of breast cancer that nearly kills her. And then her father's reputation as a highly regarded assistant D.A. is dragged very publicly through the mud. What has unleashed this dark force in their lives? And why?? Life is good in rare spurts, and the friendship of Gloria Jackson, an older girl at school, who is also the only black student there, is a huge help. Sometimes Julie’s warped sense of humor is her only weapon. Is Richard Egan, whom she meets at the end of the book, a reward for her awful year?