March 6, 2024 - Anastasia Suen

Unstuck
by Barbara Dee (Author)
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Booktalk: Lyla is thrilled when her seventh-grade English language arts class begins a daily creative writing project. For the past year, she’s been writing a brilliant fantasy novel in her head, and here’s her chance to get it on paper! The plot to Lyla’s novel is super complicated, with battle scenes and witches and a mysterious one-toed-beast, but at its core, it’s about an overlooked girl who has to rescue her beautiful, highly accomplished older sister.

But writing a fantasy novel turns out to be harder than simply imagining one, and pretty soon Lyla finds herself stuck, experiencing a panic she realizes is writer’s block. Part of the problem is that she’s trying to impress certain people—like Rania, her best friend who’s pulling away, and Ms. Bowman, the coolest teacher at school. Plus, there’s the pressure of meeting the deadline for the town writing contest. A few years ago, Lyla’s superstar teen sister Dahlia came in second, and this time, Lyla is determined to win first prize.

Finally, Lyla confides about her writing problems to Dahlia, who is dealing with her own academic stress as she applies to college. That’s when she learns Dahlia’s secret, which is causing a very different type of writer’s block. Can Lyla rescue a surprisingly vulnerable big sister, both on the page and in real life?

Snippet:
Okay, here we go.

What I’ve been waiting for, the chance to share my story. Not just the random bits I’ve been writing in my head, or scribbling on notepads, but the whole thing, from the absolute beginning.

I mean, I guess from the absolute beginning.

Because… what exactly is the absolute beginning? The day Aster is born? Or runs away from home? Or first spies the one-toed Beast that’s tracking her every move? But so much happens before all that, and it’s stuff I should probably explain in the first chapter. Seriously, if you don’t know about the Defectors, or Oleander the Witch, or how Aster’s big sister is basically kidnapped, nothing in the plot will make any sense.