Rating: 
Summary: A magnificent piece of writing
Review: "When She was Good" by Norma Fox Mazer is one of my all-time favorites.The reader is truly made to sympathize with Em, and really wants things to be okay for her. I'm afraid I don't understand where people are coming from when they say this book was too depressing for young adults. It is a very real displayal of the physical and emotional abuse suffered by this remarkable heroine. Em is put through so much in this book, but there always seems to be a sense of hope, however small. She learns and grows in a harsh cruel world with a violent sister and an unforgiving society. Norma Fox Mazer is amzing. This book is kept in my mind always and it has affected how I live from day-to-day. There is one passage in which Mazer talks about baby feet, and how everyone, every last human being, once had baby feet. It is pointed out that if we all had baby feet, chubby, naked, perfect little feet, how different can we really be? This book is magnificent and I STRONGLY reccomend it to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Beyond Survival.
Review: "Why did I go on thinking, even when Pamela slammed me around, that if you are good enough, patient enough, for long enough, your reward will come?"Have you ever read a book written by a child who has lived through war? "When She Was Good" gives you the exact same feeling. We enter the story as Em Thurkill is trying to choose a coffin for her older sister Pamela. Mazer tells the story of Em through flashbacks to her past. We discover that Em grew up in a trailer on the outskirts of a small town. Her mother was in a constant deep depression, her father an alcoholic, her older sister is abusive, paranoid, manipulative, and mentally unbalanced. After their mother's death, Pamela and Em run away from their remarried father and step-mother. In the city, Pamela forces the underage Em to get a job and support them both while Pamela spends her days sitting around the house making moppets. Pamela's death forces Em to start to deal with the abuse using a pattern many of us at LostSolace.com are familiar with: hearing the abuser yelling at us when the abuser isn't there, realizing the abuser will never come back, trying to find someone to save us, meeting people who are genuinely careing,finally finding salvation and hope within ourselves and starting on the path to liberation.
Rating:
Summary: A magnificent piece of writing
Review: "When She was Good" by Norma Fox Mazer is one of my all-time favorites.The reader is truly made to sympathize with Em, and really wants things to be okay for her. I'm afraid I don't understand where people are coming from when they say this book was too depressing for young adults. It is a very real displayal of the physical and emotional abuse suffered by this remarkable heroine. Em is put through so much in this book, but there always seems to be a sense of hope, however small. She learns and grows in a harsh cruel world with a violent sister and an unforgiving society. Norma Fox Mazer is amzing. This book is kept in my mind always and it has affected how I live from day-to-day. There is one passage in which Mazer talks about baby feet, and how everyone, every last human being, once had baby feet. It is pointed out that if we all had baby feet, chubby, naked, perfect little feet, how different can we really be? This book is magnificent and I STRONGLY reccomend it to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Rave reviews greet Mazer's astonishing new novel
Review: *Although 17-year-old Em knows she has been
liberated by her sister's unexpected death, the idea of
facing life alone is terrifying. How can she survive
without fat, crazy Pamela in multiple hats and sweaters,
telling her what to do and how to think and feel? With
recollections of Pamela's booming voice and foul mouth
echoing in her head, Em sifts through her years with her
overbearing, needy sister, recalling how Pamela physically
abused her and gradually stripped her of her self-esteem.
This isn't the first time Mazer has dealt with relationships between sisters in their teens and twenties:
her YA novel THREE SISTERS (1986) is still in print in paperback.
But this book is more intricately structured and far
more brutal. Its language is at once fierce and unpretentious,
and it has greater emotional depth than most
YA novels, including Mazer's own. Its haunting themes
speak right to older teens and the book can easily
be used as a springboard to adult novels such as
Kay Gibons' poignant ELLEN FOSTER (1987) in which
a young girl struggles to maintain her self esteem
in the face of abuse, and Janine Boissard's books about
sisters. That Em ultimately learns she posesses the
strength to overcome her past is a powerful testament to
the resiliencey of the human spirit.
Starred Review, Booklist Septmber 1, 1997
*From the onset of this heart-wrenching novel, it is evident
that Mazer (After the Rain) thoroughly understands and
empathizes with her impoverished narrator, Em, the
younger Thurkill daughter. Em eloquently expresses her
belief in an elusive happiness: "I sensed this phantom
thing, happiness, as something real--like a fabulous
painting or statue that existed in the world, hidden from
me now, but only waiting for me to come upon it." while
taking blows from her older sister, Pamela, whose
sullenness explodes into fits of rage and violence. When
Pamela and Em are forced to flee from their run-down
trailer, they move to the city where life remains grim for
14-year old Em. She has trouble holding onto a job while
caring for her sister, and continues to be "crazy" Pamela's
target for attack. Four years later, Em is shocked when
Pamela dies unexpectedly ("I didn't believe Pamela would
ever die. She was too big, too mad, too furious for
anything so shabby and easy as death"), and gingerly takes
her first steps towards liberation. The author poetically
evokes a poignant, honest image of rebirth and self-
reliance. Em edges toward friendship with younger
children and a woman named Louise, working up the
courage just to smile or say hello; begins a garden in a
vacant lot, hauling heavy jugs of water and weeding it
daily; and after an exhaustive search, finds a job with a
caring and gentle boss. Readers who wince at the heroine's
abuse and rejection will find solace in her slow-but-steady
emergence into a kinder world.
Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, 7/21/97
Rating:
Summary: YA GOTTA READ THIS!
Review: ...I have to tell you that I don't really enjoy reading at all,but for this one book I'll make an exception. The book I read was"When She Was Good," by Norma Fox Mazer. I'm always searching for a book that will hold my attention, because I seem to lose interest in things easily. The whole story seemed extremely real...I'm so proud to say that I would start reading the book before I went to bed, and it was so interesting that I would look over at the clock and it would be 12:00 AM. I was so suprised by how I lost track of time, by just rading a book. You have to read this book, you'll be happy that you did.
Rating: 
Summary: One of those bleak "good for you" books
Review: A well-written, well-meaning book, but one which hits you over the consciousness of its own Importance. No enjoyment for the reader here. Ugh
Rating:
Summary: The most gripping, powerful YA novel I have ever read.
Review: Em Thurkill is the lone survivor of a brutally, abusive family. The story begins with Em making funeral arrangements for her older sister Pamela. From this point on flashbacks reveal how the emotionally disturbed Pamela had terrorized Em after their parents were gone. After Pamela's death Em has to resurrect her own personality, find a way to support herself, and learn to function in society. This is the most gripping, powerful YA novel I have ever read. The author takes us inside the mind and soul of this unfortunate teenage girl. This book has changed forever the way I will look at foster children, and the homeless.
Rating:
Summary: great book, yet may be hard to follow for young readers
Review: I am a college student working on a project. I read this book and I liked it. I had to evaluate this book for a class and realized that if I were younger, some of the things mentioned in this book, would be hard for me to follow. I love to read and I read this book within a day. I just think that anyone can read it, but only the mature reader will be able to truly understand it.
Rating: 
Summary: I DON'T LIKE THIS BOOK.
Review: I didn't like the book When She Was Good. I found it toodepressing. Em always felt sorry for herself and was scared ofPamela, but wouldn't move away from her. Em just kept working to supply Pamela with food and clothing. Even when Pamela abused Em she wouldn't move out. The book was sometimes descriptive, but in the long-run it was too sad and depressing to enjoy. An adult might enjoy this book but as a 7th grader I found that the book was boring and monotonous.
Rating: 
Summary: Beyond Strange
Review: I had extreme difficuty getting into this book. After the first 50 pages I found it to be confussing and withough purpose. It just was intersting and couldn't keep my attention. I struggled to finish this strange piece of writing.
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