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The Beautiful Between Hardcover – May 11, 2010

by Alyssa Sheinmel (Author)

4.4 27 ratings

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If high school were a fairy-tale kingdom, Connelly Sternin would be Rapunzel, locked not in a tower by a wicked witch but in a high-rise apartment building by the SATs and college applications—and by the secrets she keeps. Connelly's few friends think that her parents are divorced—but they're not. Connelly's father died when she was two, and she doesn't know how.

If Connelly is the Rapunzel of her school, Jeremy Cole is the crown prince, son of a great and rich New York City family. So when he sits down next to her at lunch one day, Connelly couldn't be more surprised. But Jeremy has a tragic secret of his own, and Connelly is the only one he can turn to for help. Together they form a council of two, helping each other with their homework and sharing secrets. As the pair's friendship grows, Connelly learns that it's the truth, not the secrets, that one must guard and protect. And that between friends, the truth, however harsh, is also beautiful.

This lovely and memorable debut by Alyssa B. Sheinmel contains many of the hallmark themes found in young adult literature—friendship, coming of age, finding a place to belong, and overcoming the death of a loved one. Emotionally moving from start to finish, The Beautiful Between introduces a strong new voice to the genre, a voice with a long future ahead of it.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9–11—Connelly Sternin, 16, moves through her New York City high school on cruise control. She is an average student who doesn't get into trouble, doesn't sit with the cool kids, and has a quiet home life. She fantasizes that she is living in a fairy tale and sees herself as Rapunzel, confined in an Upper East Side tower amid college applications and SAT scores. She sees wealthy Jeremy Cole as the prince of their school: loved and respected by all. What she doesn't see coming is a friendship with him based on tragedy—his younger sister has leukemia—and secrets—Connelly is preoccupied with learning how her father died. Jeremy knows more about her life than she does, and together they find the fortitude to face the present and the past. Although the narrative concerns death and lies, this first novel is not dark, but instead full of small moments and quiet realism. Connelly and Jeremy's friendship, which may turn into romance, is realistically portrayed as deepening over time. The story's pace is steady. Although the buildup to the climax—Connelly confronts her mother about her father—is better paced, and more creative and satisfying than the conflict itself, overall this is a terrific alternative to the clique-y high school novels that are all sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.—Geri Diorio, The Ridgefield Library, CT
(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Review

"Endearing, realistic and heart-wrenching, Sheinmel offers a thoughtful look at teens." —The New York Post

"Sheinmel makes an impressive debut with an absorbing tale of unlikely friendship, loss, and family secrets." - Publishers Weekly

"Satisfying and believable"- Kirkus Reviews

Full of small moments and quiet realism. - School Library Journal

About the Author

Alyssa Sheinmel is the bestselling author of several novels for young adults including Faceless, What Kind of Girl, The Castle School (for Troubled Girls), and A Danger to Herself and Others. Follow Alyssa on Instagram @alyssasheinmel, or visit her online at alyssasheinmel.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

If you thought of high school as a kingdom--and I don't mean the regular kind of kingdom we have today, like England or Monaco, I mean those small ones in fairy tales that probably weren't kingdoms at all so much as they were nobledoms where the nobles considered themselves kings and granted themselves the right of prima nochte, that kind of thing--if you thought of my high school like one of those, then Jeremy Cole would be the crown prince. The crown prince who could choose from all the women in his father's domain--and not only choose them but also have them parade in front of him at, say, a dance, trying to catch his eye, hoping to be chosen.

I don't know where I'd fall in the fairy-tale-kingdom hierarchy. I'm hardly Cinderella. I'm not beautiful and I'm not poor, and we have a cleaning lady who comes once a week, so I'm not stuck with the housework. Not Snow White either--the dwarfs always struck me as stranger than they were endearing, and wild animals don't look so much cute and cuddly to me as rabid and flea-ridden. Sleeping Beauty--not a chance. I'd be happy if I could just sleep through the night, let alone one hundred years. But I guess I could be Rapunzel; I do have long hair and I'm locked not so much in a tower by a wicked queen as in an Upper East Side apartment building by the SATs and college applications. Which are wicked enough for a hundred wicked queens and then some. Just my luck: Rapunzel, who wasn't a princess at all; Rapunzel, who--in at least some of the versions of the story--didn't have a happy ending.

It's pretty easy, sitting in the cafeteria, to imagine I'm in a fairytale kingdom, to transform the girls one by one from trendy students into stately-attired ladies. Just take the prettiest girl in the room, the most popular, whose clothes hang on her so lightly that you know she could pull off a gown as easily as she can those tight jeans with that black tank top. Give the boys swords hanging from their belts, and turn their baseball caps into crowns. I guess high school cafeterias are kind of like a royal court: your chance to show off the latest fashions, to make an entrance, and, if you're lucky, to be invited to have an audience before the royals--you know, sitting at the cool table.

I never sit at the cool table. I'm not at the nerds' table either, though I admit to having had a few dangerous weeks there in middle school when I was caught talking to myself in the stairwell. Now I know better, and keep my little reveries to myself.

Sometimes I grab a bagel and run off to the library to work on my SAT words, but mostly I just sit at the table right smack in the middle of the room, the biggest table, the one where almost anyone could sit and fit in just fine. So it's not that Jeremy's choosing me was a total shock because I was a dork. I mean, I am a dork, in my own "Hey, have you read this amazing novel?" kind of way--but not in any of the ways that get you kicked out of the kingdom. I speak up in class, but not too much; I come to school with my skirt too short and a black coffee in hand (even though I add so much sugar that you can barely taste the coffee); I even sneak out of the building between classes from time to time and stand on the corner with the smokers, bitching about the latest history substitute. The popular girls tolerate me just fine; the cool boys never take note.

So here I am, sitting at the central table in high court, staring at Alexis Bryant, who is sitting across from me and picking at a plate of limp lettuce. Alexis and I used to have playdates when we were younger, and the snacks at her house were always organic and whole-grain, while at my house, it was all Wonder bread and Coca-Cola. I wonder whether anyone else notices that Alexis is anorexic. Anorexia is so 1990s. In the twenty-first century, you only noticed when girls got skinny because they were doing a lot of blow. Even when celebrities got checked into clinics for eating disorders, rumors always flew that it was just a cover-up for their drug problems.

Emily Winters sits down next to me, her bangle bracelets clicking against themselves. She has to take them off when we're in class because they're so loud, but she always wears them in between classes, before and after school, and at lunch.

"Did you hear who Jeremy Cole is dating?"

Like anyone else would when Jeremy's name is mentioned, I snap to attention. "No, who?"

"Well, this is just a rumor, but I swear to God, I heard he hooked up with Beverly Edwards last weekend."

"No!"

"Yes!"

"But she's so . . . She's not smart. Once she asked Ms. Jewett whether To Kill a Mockingbird was a hunting book."

"She must have been joking."

"She wasn't."

"He can't be dating her."

"Maybe he just hooked up with her."

A new voice enters the conversation, a man's voice all high-pitched and pretending to be girly: "We should take him out back and beat the crap out of him."

Emily and I look up--Jeremy is sitting on the other side of me. If my face is anything like Emily's, I'm blushing wildly. Emily pretends to be done eating and leaves me. Alone. With Jeremy Cole. I'm sure that everyone's watching; this table is right across from the food line, right smack in the center. Everyone can see.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf Books for Young Readers; 1st edition (May 11, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0375861823
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0375861826
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 12 - 15 years
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 7 - 9
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.84 x 0.94 x 8.49 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,499,847 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6,199 in Teen & Young Adult Friendship Fiction
- #9,417 in Teen & Young Adult Family Fiction
- #698,086 in Children's Books (Books)

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4.4 27 ratings

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Alyssa Sheinmel

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Alyssa Sheinmel is the New York Times bestselling author of several novels for young adults, including The Castle School for Troubled Girls, What Kind of Girl, A Danger to Herself and Others, and Faceless. Alyssa is the co-author of The Haunting of Sunshine Girl. Alyssa currently lives and writes in New York. Follow Alyssa on Instagram and Twitter @alyssasheinmel, and visit her online at alyssasheinmel.com.

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Goose Girl

Bittersweet Friendship

Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2011

Verified Purchase

Jeremy, royalty of New York and the school Connelly attends, befriends Connelly under the pretense of helping her with her physics if she'll help his with his SAT vocabulary. She is more than shocked but readily agrees. He sits with her regularly as they watch the girl that sits across from them cut lettuce slices into squares and eat them. They don't talk while they watch her slowly dwindle away with anorexia until she's checked into a hospital for her disease.

Then, they start to study together. They are only friends but they bond over studying and a surprising secret. Connelly likes Kate, Jeremy's sister as much as she likes Jeremy. Kate is in 7th grade but hangs out with the 11th graders, she's that likeable and charming. She makes Connelly feel like she belongs with Jeremy as friends maybe more, but at least that they are alike.

Then, as tragedy strikes in Jeremy's family, he begins to call Connelly at odd hours to meet him. And, she becomes part of the royalty, invited to parties thrown by people she'd never thought would have invited her much less known her name.

Things come to a climax when Jeremy's tragedy peaks and he begs Connelly to get the answers she needs about her father's death.

The story is told from Connelly's point of view and it's easy to warm up to her. On the other hand, I found it hard to figure Jeremy out. He was erratic and cryptic and only made sense at the very end of the novel for one betrayal. I'm hoping there will be a follow up, but I don't see how there can be with the closure Jeremy and Connelly got. I just felt like so much was left up in the air between them.

Despite all that, I enjoyed the book and couldn't put it down. It was a very quick read and I will definitely read another novel from this author.

It dealt with a delicate subject in a neutral way letting the reader fill in the blanks and didn't dwell morbidly on the subject.

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Court S

Best book!

Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2011

Verified Purchase

This book was definitely my favorite of 2010! Connelly Sternin is a high schooler at a private school in NYC, and she's a little bit of an outsider among her cool and fabulous classmates ... that is until she strikes up a friendship with Jeremy Cole, the "crowned prince" of the school. But it's not a typical YA romance, which is what makes this book so special. Sheinmel's prose is absolutely breathtaking, and despite the heartbreak Connelly and Jeremy have to face, there is such hope in the story. I can't wait for THE LUCKY KIND to come out in May -- that's Alyssa B. Sheinmel's next book!

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Rachael Stein

So beautifully written

Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2011

Connelly Sternin is mostly content with where she is. She gets decent grades, studies for her SATs, and plays nice with her mom. She's mostly fine with keeping her secrets, like the fact that her father died when she two though she doesn't know how, in order to stay under the radar. So Connelly couldn't be more surprised when Jeremy Cole, the most popular guy in school, decides one day to sit with her at lunch. It turns out that Jeremy has some tragic secrets of his own that link him to Connelly in unexpected ways. Their friendship is tentative but grows as each opens up, but though she's come to cherish her time with Jeremy, Connelly isn't quite sure if she's ready to completely delve into her past to find the truth. But the truth may be just what she needs to finally be free.

The Beautiful Between is a wonderful story that is just so gorgeously crafted and written that it is difficult to believe it was Sheinmel's debut novel. Connelly's voice grabs the reader from the very first page; she's the type of narrator that stays with you even when you've taken a break from reading her story. Even though Connelly's situation of not knowing part of her own history is rather unusual and some of the major turning points in the plot are so sudden, everything is so perfectly integrated that the story flows smoothly. I love how Sheinmel presents a different look at the lives of high school students that is perhaps a little less glamorous or gritty than those presented in other YA novels; it certainly makes The Beautiful Between stand out and in some ways makes it feel much more realistic. Sheinmel strips away the unnecessary excess of high school and shows readers exactly what they need to see, which is two teens struggling to deal with belonging and loss. I loved being immersed in this story, because, simply said, it is beautifully written and truly stands out from the rest.

The Beautiful Between should be read by fans of Wish by Alexandra Bullen, Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, and For Keeps by Natasha Friend.

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The Beautiful Between Hardcover – May 11, 2010

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