Review: If I Tell

If I Tell
By Janet Gurtler
Release Date: October 1, 2011

Description:
Jasmine Evans knows one thing for sure... people make mistakes. After all, she is one. Jaz is the result of a one night stand between a black football player and a blond princess. Having a young mother who didn't raise her, a father who wants nothing to do with her and living in a small-minded town where she's never fit in hasn't been easy. But she's been surviving. Until she sees her mom's new boyfriend making out with her own best friend. When do you forgive people for being human or give up on them forever?

Review:
Jasmine is the only biracial person in her entire town and automatically feels left out and knows how to push people away, never letting them get close to her.  She has dealt with this her entire life, especially in fourth grade when she had a really bad experience in the pool with the entire fourth grade class.  Ever since then she has made it a point to stay away from people as much as possible.  She does have friends outside of school, such as Lacey, someone who is very outgoing and tends to drink and blackout a lot.  Not to mention hook up with many guys while she is drunk.  But one day Jasmine catches Lacey making out with the one person she never wanted her to be with, her mother's boyfriend Simon.  The only Black person in her life that she used to look up to until she caught him kissing her best friend.  This is where the story begins. 

Jasmine already had really bad trust issues and Simon ruined that, and she had every intention of telling her mother what she saw.  That is, until her mother announces that she is pregnant.  This changes everything.  There is a new guy in school and he starts working at the coffee shop that Jasmine and Lacey work at, Jackson.  He tries and tries to break through Jasmine's wall to get closer to her.  You experience her struggle with her race throughout the whole book along with her struggles between all the relationships in her life. 

She grows and learns to trust people but that's not with out the occasional argument.  The book was good I finished it rather quickly and enjoyed it very much.  I wish she wasn't such a hard head and that everything wasn't based solely on race but overall good quick read.