Carolee Dean

I won't offer you a tired admonition to avoid my path. I won't advise you to stay on the straight and narrow. I won't suggest that you make good choices. I won't even tell you to do the right thing. You can get that kind of advice from teachers and parents and tv evangelists, and if you are like me, you wouldn't listen anyway. I just make one suggestion.

Know which path you're on.

Wow, this was a very strong story. Now, this was not a love story, although the theme is there.
This book tackles show more quite a few topics and I think, depending on your opinions about those topics - you will either love this or hate this.

It's a great story as long as you go into it not thinking you are getting a cute little high school love story. This is a story with real grit, with real "in your face" surprises.

It might even make you uncomfortable - because you have to face some of the uglier sides of society and really look at them. And I loved this book because of it. [a:Carolee Dean|564425|Carolee Dean|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1277821737p2/564425.jpg] didn't shy away from the tough story - she embraced it and gave us all the ugly nitty gritty reality of growing up this way. Of what happens when you slide a little from the straight and narrow and how quickly it can get away from you. But also pointing out - nature vs nurture. Or how much is this society molded because of the expectation (once a screw up, always a screw up).

There is just so much to point out and say I loved because it's such a great story. But I don't want to ruin it for you.

Go ahead. Give it a try. I think you'll be glad you did. show less

I enjoyed this book a lot, but I will warn you that it is not all fluff and happily-ever-afters. This story follows Dylan, a troubled teen, as he struggles to come to terms with his family history and his own past mistakes. A lot of his mistakes are being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he still has to live with the consequences. The book has the feel of a ‘race against time’ that you quickly get swept right into, until the gut-wrenching climax. It is easy to feel a connection show more to Dylan and you hate to watch him constantly struggle as one thing after another brings him down. The romance element of the book was well written, but often took the back burner to the main plot line. Dylan’s poetry included in the novel was touching and a great supportive element before each chapter. Reading this story made me want to stand up, do some research, and start a literacy movement... or at least SOME kind of movement. I found the story touching and heartbreaking. I would recommend this book for only older teens or adults since there are scenes of underage drinking, drug references (implied past usage), and references to sex. show less

I picked up the book Take Me There by Carolee Dean because of the smutty cover. [Occasionally I have these lapses in propriety.] Imagine my surprise to discover that the cover had nothing whatsoever to do with the story. Even the blurb was misleading.

As it turns out, the book is much better than either the cover or the blurb intimated, but I find the dishonesty of the cover absolutely outrageous. (The publisher is Simon Pulse, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing show more Division.)

This is the story of Dylan Dawson; the huge footprint his parents' past made upon his soul; and the love and loyalty among that family in spite of everything. It is also about friendship – how far you should go for a friend versus the cost of not staying true to yourself. And very tangentially, there is a girl Dylan loves, Jess, who has about a 2% role in this story. But mostly, I would say, it’s about the bad luck that can happen from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, even if you were there for all the right reasons.

An important sub-theme of the book deals with the deleterious effects of illiteracy. We feel Dylan's mortification and sense of impotence along with him as he tries hard to hide his inability to read. And we see the unfortunate results of the link between the rates of illiteracy and incarceration. [Nationally, over 70% of adult prison inmates cannot read above the 4th grade level, and 85% percent of young people in the juvenile court system cannot read.]

A couple of the characters in the story become a part of the Texas prison system, and both happen to be innocent. Both are found guilty, however, in the courts of public opinion; they never had a chance with their juries. Compounding the heartbreak of the situation is the fact that Texas leads all states in carrying out executions. But what if you didn’t commit the crime?

Dylan is an extremely sympathetic character, in spite of the mistakes he makes – mistakes made out of fear, misguided loyalty, hurt, pride, and (ultimately, it seemed to me) lack of parenting. As Dylan sits along the pier on Hermosa Avenue in L.A., his wistful assessment of people he imagines only to have made good choices is heartbreaking:

"I watched the people going by, laughing and talking. Not sad, desperate people, but folks with hope and a future. I wondered what it would feel like to be a person a future. … Wished I could erase myself and start over.”

Evaluation: I don’t want to tell you many details, because it would give too much away. I will say though that the plot is refreshingly different in telling a story centering around poor, uneducated whites. I felt the ending rang true, even though I wished it were otherwise. It’s a book that ends both sadly and hopefully, and it’s a story that will stay with me a long time. Also, this book would make a great book club selection, because of controversial issues that it would be too "spoilery" for me to reveal! I just wish the publishers could have made an honest presentation of this book, so it would get the coverage it deserves. show less

“How do you know where a story begins?...
I could keep going back and back and back until I got all the way to Cain and Abel and Adam, but I won’t bore you with the history of the world.
Instead I’ll start with a girl named Jess.”
Dylan may begin his story with Jess, but this is not a sweet story about a boy and girl falling in love. Instead it is about a tough kid living a tough life and the girl who made him see that he didn’t have to have a tough future. But even that is show more oversimplifying it.
It is difficult for me to review this book in a way that won’t give too much of the story away. The cover of the book is deceptive in that it makes it seem like it’s a fluffy read about a tortured, maybe even forbidden romance, and this book is so not fluff. It’s the opposite of fluff – it’s a rocky cliff with jagged edges and a dangerously unstable path. (Please don’t misunderstand me, though: there is a romance with some heart-fluttering moments, but it is more a springboard for the story than the story itself.) What I will say about the plot is that it involves gangs and prison and an estranged father and a fight for justice and the truth. It’s pretty heavy at times, but it’s also a page turner.
My only real problem as I read the story was that there are moments that felt very much like someone pulled out their soapbox, went to the corner, and proceeded to yell into a bullhorn. I do not have a problem with the message in any way, but the delivery was a bit pushy. However, I think the message is important and I was not aware of the scope of the problem that was addressed, so maybe pushy is necessary. It made the story feel a little choppy, but it didn’t detract from the impact the story had on me.
Dylan’s story is interspersed with his poetry, and the combination of his poetry and the honesty of his struggle made him a character I love. He is extremely flawed, but those flaws add such depth to his character that I will not soon forget him or this story. show less