Get Real

Get Real, by Betty Hicks, is a charming coming-of-age story narrated by thirteen (almost fourteen) year old Destiny Carter. Better known as “Dez,” Destiny has a best friend, parents who do not understand her, a younger brother Denny, and a yen to play the piano. Her avant-garde parents, a scientist mother who incessantly views the weather channel and a poet father who speaks in verse, are noisy, messy, and polar opposites of neatnik Dez. Best friend Jil is adopted and Dez perceives her family, the neat and proper Lewis’s, as picture perfect.

One afternoon Jil overhears her adoptive mother talking to her birth mother Jane, a single woman with another daughter who has decided she would like to get to know the daughter she gave up. As best friends are wont to do, Dez accompanies Jil to meet Jane. Instead of the ideal parent each girl thinks they want, both learn to accept and appreciate the honest parents they currently have. Neither set is perfect, but the girls cleverly differentiate between what consititues a mom or dad - and parents. Their reasoning is both simplistic and profound, "Parents make up stupid rules and worry about insane stuff - because they love you."(p. 167).

This could have been one among many best friend books stands out as Hicks gives teenage Dez a realistic and fresh voice. Consequently, as both girls struggle to find their own identity, each learns what constitutes friendship and family. The ending is sensibly satisfying without being sappy.

Tags: Get Real, Betty Hicks, Children's literature, Juvenile Books, YA literature, Young Adult literature