true false top 25% +=500 center top 50% top 33% true 1 1 none 0.5 0 none center top 50% top 33% true 1 1 none 0.5 0 none center top 50% top 33% true 1 3 none 0.5 0 none center top 50% top 33% true 1 3 none 0.5 0 none

Book Author(s): Allegra Goodman

Sam

Sam book cover

This review contains affiliate links, which earn me a small commission when you click and purchase, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my small business and allowing me to continue providing you a reliable resource for clean book ratings.

From Goodreads:

There is a girl, and her name is Sam. She adores her father, though he isn’t around much. Her mother, Courtney, struggles to make ends meet, and never fails to remind her daughter that her life should be different. Sam doesn’t fit in at school, where the other girls have the right shade of blue jeans and don’t question the rules. Sam doesn’t care about jeans or rules. She just loves to climb — trees, fences, walls, the side of a building. When she’s climbing, she discovers a place she belongs: she can turn off her brain, pain has a purpose, and it’s okay if you want to win.

As Sam grows into her teens, she grapples with self-doubt and insecurity. She yearns for her climbing coach to notice her, but his attention crosses boundaries she doesn’t know how to resist. She wishes her father would leave for good, instead of always coming and going, but once he’s gone, she realizes how much she’s lost. She rages against her mother’s constant pressure to plan for a more secure future. Wrestling with who she wants to be in the face of what she’s expected to do, Sam comes to understand that she alone can make her dreams come true.

Rapid Rating: High. (It’s very close to being a moderate, however.)

Profanity includes 6 uses of strong language, around 10 instances of moderate profanity, 6 uses of mild language, and 10 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes kissing, removal of clothes and more happening but not much detail. An underage teen dates a man in his early 20s. There are some references to underage alcohol drinking and drug use. Violence includes a fistfight between two men.

About Rapid Ratings

The Rapid Rating option allows Rated Reads to rate more books for content. A quick search of an e-book can show all instances of profanity and at least some of any sexual content or violence. Likely, most Rapid Ratings will be of books rated High.

Scroll to Top