CRUNCH TIME
Mariah Fredericks
Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books
Fiction
ISBN: 068986938X
336 pages

CRUNCH TIME is a little like the movie The Breakfast Club, if the teens in the movie were taking the SAT rather than serving detention time. A group of four juniors --- Max, Daisy, Leo and Jane --- are thrown together when they walk out on an SAT prep class and decide to form a study group instead. The group is a mismatched bunch and includes a jock, a brain, a rich kid, and an average Joe. Together they cheer each other on and draw on each other's strengths when they meet to study for the test. Will they improve their odds, or is it just hopeless?

A romantic triangle is woven into the plot and only increases the pressure the kids are already feeling. After they take the test in March, there is some speculation about a student who paid another student to take the test for him/her. Was it one of the four of them? Tension builds as rumors start to fly and they become suspicious of one another.

Mariah Fredericks, who wrote HEAD GAMES and the award-winning THE TRUE MEANING OF CLEAVAGE, gets into the heads of her teenage characters in her third novel. The dialogue and thought patterns of the main protagonists are right on the money. I felt their tension and anxiety on every page. Anyone who has ever taken the SAT exam or must take it in the future will instantly relate to the characters in CRUNCH TIME.

   --- Reviewed by Renee Kirchner (renee.kirchner@usa.net)

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