Click on the book to read Amazon reviews

Available in audio from Listening Library

Tashjian, Janet.
FAULT LINE
New York : Holt, 2003.
IL YA
ISBN 0805072004

(2 booktalks)

Meet Becky Martin.  Bright, talented, funny, going places.  She's only 17 but she knows just what she wants to do with her life.  She's going to be a stand up comic.  She and her best friends are already performing at open mike nights at local clubs.  They love to work on their routines together.  At one club, they meet an amazing young man.  Kip is also a comic wannabe.  He is funny, charming and so good looking.  Becky is flattered when he asks for her number.  They click and start spending time together.  He helps her with her routine and treats her like a queen.   Becky begins to ignore her old friends and spends more and more time with Kip.  Every time she tries to do things on her own, Kip gets upset and hurt.   Becky realizes that Kip is beginning to control her, but she loves him so much that she doesn't try to stop him.  But then it happens.  One night as she is getting ready to leave, he forbids her to leave and grabs her braid so hard that she crumples in pain and fear.  It's just a mistake.  He didn't really mean to do it.  It will never happen again.  Will it?

Booktalk #2

Becky Martin, a seventeen-year-old aspiring comedian, has it all-a loving family, a terrific best friend, and success in San Francisco improv clubs.  Her life gets even better when she meets Kip Costello, a handsome, successful comedian.  They become inseparable and Kip begins to take most of her time.  Kip begins hurting Becky with words and then pulling her hair and throwing her down. When she ends up in the hospital, she must reexamine her relationship with Kip.  Will Becky wise up and end the relationship or be sucked back in to more abuse?  Read Fault Line to find out.  (Sally Hursey, South Carolina Book Awards, 2006)