trying hard to be different

LIKE MADARIN by Kirsten Hubbard (delacorte 2011) is the story of Grace and Mandarin, two hgih school students who could not be more different.  The town where Grace and Mandarin live is more than just small, it is almost non-existent to the outside world and even to some of its more colorful residents. It is all Grace has known for most of her life, though. The only time she has escaped her Wyoming town is to travel to child beauty pageants. Now it is Grace's younger sister who is the focus of the pageant trail. Grace is 14, has skipped a grade at school, and feels more of an outcast than ever before. So when Mandarin Ramey comes into Grace's lackluster life, things change and change quickly. Mandarin is everything Grace is not: beautiful, daring, and with a plan of escaping the small hick town they call home. Then Grace and Mandarin are paired for a project, and suddenly Grace is drawn into Mandarin's orbit, a crazy path to be sure. Grace comes to understand that, underneath the veneer Mandarin maintains with a great deal of work, lurks a troubled soul, one who could drag Grace into danger. <218>

Some interesting ladder rungs:

ABSOLUTELY MAYBE by Lisa Yee
CHIGGERS by Hope Larson
IDENTICAL by Ellen Hopkins
paper towns by John Green
SAME DIFFERENCE by Siobhan Vivian
WHAT I SAW AND HOW I LIED by Judy Blundell