3.75* 
 This was a good story about high school and the changes one can go through, as well as the ideals of self acceptance. 
 This story is told through dual perspectives - the first (and most prominent throughout the story) being Tim, a senior who arrives at a new school half-way through the semester wanting to skate by and be left alone. He is used to it and prefers it because he is an albino. Tim's story is played on CD's by Duncan (our second character) who was a junior while Tim was there, but is a senior at the beginning of the story. Duncan comes back to school with a lot on his mind from the previous year (we know something bad happened that is going to unfolded as both Tim and Duncan's stories interweave) and it is through Tim's CD story telling that Duncan is able to accept himself. 
 The issues that both Tim and Duncan face are very real and I was able to connect to Tim's hardship of being so self-conscious about his image. Tim let his physical appearance hold him back, and I think most middle or high schoolers have at one time or another been self-conscious about the way they look and have let it dictate certain things about their life. 
 I wasn't able to connect as well to Duncan's character. He seemed much more moody to me and the big reveal towards the end of what was bothering him so much surprised me - but not in a good way. I couldn't believe that he would blame himself for what happened (it is obvious throughout the book that he is playing the blame game on himself in his head by distancing himself from other characters). Self-blame is definitely something that a lot of us do and can be seen as distracting and holding people back in certain situations, but the specifics of this book made it feel slightly less than real. Without giving too much away, Duncan didn't even know the senior class (that means Tim or any of the minor characters)and so there should be no reason for him to feel as though anything that happened would have been his fault. 
 I think Elizabeth LaBan did a good job of creating a few original characters (Tim is the one that stands out most strongly to me) to fit within "cliques" that nearly everyone had within their own high school. The rest were mostly cliched which didn't necessarily make a connection with me. 
 The descriptions in this book were pretty good and being from the Midwest where the weather is relatively similar to that on the East Coast, I was able to get a very clear image of what things looked like (including the buildings/rooms). There were some parts where there were descriptions that I thought either dragged on or felt a little unnatural. There were a few times where either Tim or Duncan were talking about going to breakfast and would then describe what was for breakfast and where the school got all the items of food from (the school supported locally grown and made items). While I do like the fact that LaBan chose to make the school ecologically friendly and to support local businesses, there were definitely parts that didn't work themselves into the story naturally. Do I as the reader really need to know where the school got their heirloom tomatoes? And further more, do I really need to know the specifics of what was being eaten for lunch if it was not directly related to what was happening in the story. The only reason I would get so nit-picky about this is because I remember reading some of the lunch room scenes and thinking to myself that the specific food they were eating didn't feel like a natural part of the story. 
 Either way, this book would be a great one for middle schoolers and young high schoolers. One of my sophomores came to me one day this past school year telling me that she had stayed up really late to finish reading this book and she thought I should read it. I'm glad she connected so well to it, but I don't think I did as much because of my age difference in relation to the characters and some of the cliched "clique" characters.