Mary's older sister, Gwen, has royally screwed up her life. Not only is Gwen pregnant at seventeen, but she's also decided to marry The Creep who knocked her up.
Now Mary is powerless to stop her family from imploding. Her parents are freaking out, and to top it off The Creep has a gross fascination with Mary while Gwen enjoys teasing her to tears for sport.
Despite her brother's advice to shut up, Mary can't keep her trap closed and manages to piss off Mom so much it comes to blows.
Mary doesn't know what to do, and all her attempts to get help are rejected. When she finally plans her escape, she fails to consider how it could destroy them all.
Review:
Hey guys today I’m going to review Shut Up by Anne Tibbets.
I have literally just finished the book and I have to admit I write in quite a somber mood. I absolutely love contemporary YA, so when the author was kind enough to reach out to me I jumped on the opportunity to read and review this book. And what a book!
The novel is told mostly in the point of view of Mary and some chapters are told in Paul, Mary’s older brother’s, point of view. In either point of view you see what hardships Mary has to go through in day to day life. Her home life is horrible. Her school life makes her miserable. You watch as Mary is constantly beaten down day after day with hurtful words by people that should be looking after her.
At home it’s a constant war-zone with Mary’s older sister Gwen, who despite being a bright popular seventeen year old, manages to get pregnant by her boyfriend who Mary calls The Creep. Mary endures being called fat, ugly, and many other names by Gwen and all her family does is sit and watch. But in my opinion Gwen isn’t the worst Mary has to handle at home. Her mother constantly hits Mary, thinking that this way she’ll learn from her “mistakes”. The problem is that all of Mary’s mistakes are not mistakes.
And The Creep…. He accosts Mary, making inappropriate advances toward her even though she’s only twelve and when trying to defend herself all Mary gets is another verbal onslaught from Gwen.
My emotions while reading this book were complete mayhem, but the one that always stuck was anger. I was angry at Paul, for knowing that Mary was dying from all the abuse she suffered but not doing anything about it. I was angry at Mary’s mom for thinking that violence could fix anything, although that was how she was raised. And I loathed Gwen for having the nerve to say the things she did to Mary when she had no right. Even though it is a fictional novel, I can’t stand the fact that out there in the world there are people that go through this every day. Mary endured countless months of pain and people just sat there and watched it all, too afraid to say anything.
I applaud Anne Tibbets on such a powerful novel. In a hundred and ten pages Mrs. Tibbets said so much. I am still shocked at how much the novel got to me. This novel has such an amazing storyline, characters, and especially ending.
A must read for anyone!
Grade:
A+
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