The Mockingbirds (The Mockingbirds #1)

Title: The Mockingbirds

Author: Daisy Whitney

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Release Date: November 2, 2010
Received From: Publisher in return for an honest review

Summary: 

Some schools have honor codes.
Others have handbooks.
Themis Academy has the Mockingbirds.
Themis Academy is a quiet boarding school with an exceptional student body that the administration trusts to always behave the honorable way-the Themis way. So when Alex Patrick is date-raped during her junior year, she has two options: Stay silent and hope someone helps, or enlist the aid of the Mockingbirds-a secret society of students dedicated to righting the wrongs of the student body.
In this account of a teenage girl's search for her voice and the courage to use it, debut author Daisy Whitney reminds readers that standing up for someone, especially yourself, is worth the fight.

Review:

I am not sure how I can write a review that truly captures how powerful this book was. The Mockingbirds is about standing up for yourself and being willing to fight for it.

Now thankfully I have never been date-raped but I think if I were I would react the same way Alex did in the beginning. She didn’t want to tell anyone because she thought they would look down on her, and that she would forever be seen as “that girl who was date-raped.”

Another reason Alex doesn’t want to tell is because she doesn’t remember it so she is not positive whether she gave consent or not. This is a huge deal, thousands of girls every year use that reason as the reason they don’t report/tell someone. Whitney paints the picture of a lost and confused girl absolutely perfectly. Unfortunately that is because it happened to her. After you read The Mockingbirds make sure to read the author note. It really solidified for me the feelings I had about the book.

The secondary characters in The Mockingbirds were really strong and I wish we had gotten to know them better, but I did like how we got to learn more about Anna as the book progressed.

I highly recommend this book to everyone. I think it is important to have books that bring up these issues and empower girls through them.