Theresa Anderson(Tee-Ay) is a girl who definately tries harder than most of the students attending her high school, wich is not the best school in her city. Her parents, especially her mom are very strict, and she is not allowed to go out much. And the teachers at school just are as bad with their demotivating attitudes.Luckily Tee-Ays has one escape: hip hop music. Tee-Ay's best friends are Cee-Saw and Sonia. When Cee-Saw gets pregnant and drops school, and Sonia's family problems (read more about her in the book The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriquez!) ask her to leave school too, Tee-Ay seems to be on herself, and has to prepare for her SAT tests alone. But she gets friends with Devon, a boy from her class who is also a hard working student., They study together for the SAT tests, and develop a real friendship, maybe even more. Their goal is to be both accepted into a top college. Tee-Ay hopes to get into USC, but when she has a low score the tree times she takes the SAT, it seems her hard work and dream are vanished.And then Devon gets shot in a street fight, and Theresa has to apply by herself for the top colleges, even though she has low scores she still has a little chance after all..and maybe Devon still has a chance to get into college, but they have to hurry..
Alan Sitomer has written an amazing ya novel with Hip Hop High School. What is really fun about Alan's books is that for example Sonia Rodriquez appears in this book (wich is a sequel to his book The Hoopster, I just found out) too. It was very realistic with a funny edge in it.
It reminded me a bit of my own high school time and the people that where there.Alan is a high school teacher and he really knows what he writes about.
Tee-Ay is just a brilliant narrator and I felt really sorry for her when al her hard work didn't pay off.She really deserved better with her test results! I thought it was a ya novel with a real and good story, and I can also recommend Alan's book The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriquez too, wich is also on of the characters in this book.
