Product Description

Dressing up as an eighteenth century farm girl is not how Betsy Odell imagined spending the summer before her senior year of high school, but her history professor father insists she take a job at Morrisville Historic Village. To make matters worse, Liza Murphy, only the biggest freak from school -- piercings, tattoos, bleached hair -- works as a farm girl too. As far as Betsy can tell, her summer will be miserable and any chance of ever being popular is doomed.

When tragedy strikes Betsy close to home, her boyfriend and 'friends' are nowhere to be found, and her job becomes a welcome escape from the real world. James, a Morrisville employee from the next town over, is probably the greatest -- not to mention cutest -- guy Betsy has ever met, and Liza is surprisingly normal and fun. Caught between two worlds -- old and new -- Betsy is soon struggling with two versions of herself. Combining backdrops of historic Morrisville with the normal teenage world of beach parties, learning to drive, and broken hearts, Tara Altebrando writes a hilarious and fun novel of one girl's search for love and happiness?and the unlikely places she finds them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #198842 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781416513285
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"A dreamlike evocation of friendship and romance, and how tragedy can be transformed into art. Like Sarah Dessen's The Truth About Forever, The Pursuit of Happiness deals insightfully with love and loss."

-- Alex McAulay, author of Bad Girls

Review
"A dreamlike evocation of friendship and romance, and how tragedy can be transformed into art. Like Sarah Dessen's The Truth About Forever, The Pursuit of Happiness deals insightfully with love and loss."

-- Alex McAulay, author of Bad Girls

About the Author
Tara Altebrando lives in Astoria, New York. Visit her website at www.taraaltebrando.com.

Customer Reviews

Miss Independent
In this dramatic and engaging story, a teenage girl named Betsy is grief-stricken when her mother loses her battle with cancer. Though Betsy typically gets along well with her younger brother and father, her mother's death causes the family members to pull apart quietly, each dealing with the loss in his or her own way.

Summer has a lot of other changes in store for Betsy. Her boyfriend dumps her shortly after her mother's funeral. Her best friend Mary may not be her best friend any longer. Her job at the colonial village, where she has to dress up and play the part of the dutiful daughter, becomes more intriguing due to her co-workers Liza (complete with piercings and a bad reputation) and James (apprentice by day, surfer by night). She also finds herself with a new hobby: cutting silhouettes out of paper.

As Betsy struggles with the five stages of grief, she occasionally falters, then later regrets what she said or did. Altebrando infuses her main character with a strong spirit. Betsy never stops trying to get back on her feet, and readers will cheer her on.

This book moves along at a steady pace, with a first-person narrative enabling the reader to get inside Betsy's head. The coming-of-age tale greatly benefits from the summertime setting. The realistic dialogue will meet the approval of teen and adult readers.

Tara Altebrando has written a wonderful tale about love, loss, family, and finding yourself. This is definitely one of the best books I've read this year, and I highly recommend it. If you enjoy The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen, The Alison Rules by Catherine Clark, or Good Grief by Lolly Winston, you will undoubtedly enjoy The Pursuit of Happiness.

Courtesy of Teens Read Too
According to the book On Death and Dying by Elsabeth Kubler-Ross, the five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. If you ask Betsy Irving, though, Elsabeth got it all wrong. The five stages of grief are really agitation, intoxication, experimentation, resignation, and reinvigoration. Betsy's known for awhile that her mother is going to die. After all, with the type of breast cancer that her mother has, and the late stage that it's in, there's not a lot that can be done. But it's still a shock that hot, sticky Thursday in June when she leaves work at the Morrisville Historic Village early when her Aunt Patty and Uncle Jim show up to escort her home. Now her mother is gone, the funeral is over, the well-meaning guests have left, and it's just Betsy, her dad, and her younger brother, Ben, taking up space in the huge white Victorian house that they call home.

In the beginning, Betsy's friends have only her best interests at heart, and her first real boyfriend, Brandon, tries to be there for her, but Betsy still feels as if nothing in her life is working out as planned. And when said friends seem to disappear off the face of the earth, and Brandon turns out not to be the great boyfriend she had hoped for when he dumps her, things in Betsy's life get even more off-kilter. As if it wasn't bad enough that she's spending the summer working at the Village (which she knows was a trick devised by her history-loving, professor father), dressed in stifling Early American clothes and demonstrating cornbread making to eager tourists, now she has to do it alone, without any real friends or a supportive boyfriend--and in the presence of Liza Henske, whose Goth Girl shield isn't allowed at the Village.

It's amazing, though, what a new sort-of friend like Liza can teach a girl who just wants to get away form it all. And when James, the Village carpenter who will soon be leaving for Princeton, begins to comfort her with his soft-spoken words and small carvings, Betsy starts to learn that no matter what the actual stages of grief are, she just might be able to survive them after all.

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS is a poignant, heartfelt novel. It's one of the best books I've read dealing with grief, with dialogue that never seems out of place or too cheesy. Ms. Altebrando has written a stunning debut novel that will leave you thinking about the story of Betsy and her family and friends long after you've finished the book.

Happiness found?
Tara Altebrando did a great job writing a teen book that isn't like all the others (Gossip Girl, It Girl, A-List, etc.). The Pursuit of Happiness is all about a teen named Betsy who's trying to figure out why life is the way it's turned out to be. Her mother just passed away and she's confused and torn apart. Her boyfriend just broke up with her for another girl. Her summer job is her only escape from reality.

If you're a fan of Sarah Dessen's writing then for sure you'll like this book. If you're looking for fluffy teen books, I suggest to look elsewhere.