Because I Am Furniture-- a review by Katie Hayes

Because I Am Furniture
By: Thalia Chaltas
** Stars

In Because I Am Furniture, Anke a teenage girl entering her first year of high school goes through many hardships. Some of those hardships are making the volleyball team, trying to get the cutest boy, Kyler, to actually notice her and many hard struggles with abuse at home. During volleyball Anke meets Rona, who becomes a very close friend of hers throughout the book. Anke has a brother Darren and a sister Yaicha. Anke feels like furniture at home...Like no one even notices her. Maybe that’s a good thing, considering her siblings aren’t getting noticed in good ways, better yet they are protecting her from being noticed by their Dad. Anke’s mom tries to stay out of everything, not even supporting Anke at volleyball or doing what is right for their family. When Anke goes to her father’s work one evening to help a friend Angeline out, everything changes.

This is the first time I have read a book by Thalia Chaltas, and I actually wasn’t too impressed. It was a very fast read, if I actually sat down one day and read it, it may at most take about two hours. In the book, the author would talk about one thing, such as Anke’s school life, and then quickly switch to her home life. I felt like I didn’t get enough information. I gave it two stars because I feel like it wasn’t a book for me, I enjoyed parts of it, and I just felt like it didn’t exactly keep my interest at most parts. I would recommend this to other though because that was my opinion about this book but I feel like others could actually really enjoy it. This book isn’t part of a series but it does stand good alone, she starts the book off well and ends it well. The genre of this book would be teen angst, because it deals with abuse and high school issues.