About this book:
“A hopeful adventure for kids ages 8-12 about sisterhood, friendship, and the power of starting over.
Three years ago, Jada Robinson betrayed her best friend.
Now, her family has moved, and thirteen-year-old Jada struggles to make friends. Realizing how it feels to be bullied, she’d give anything to undo the past.
When Jada finds a stray dog, she is sure he’s the same beloved pet her ex-best friend, Kimmy, once lost. This feels like Jada’s chance to make things right.
Jada talks her two older sisters into a trip to Pennsylvania to reunite Kimmy with her furry friend. But as new questions about their canine companion unravel Jada’s plans, she wonders how she’ll face Kimmy after all these years.
The road ahead may be more complicated than Jada imagined.”
Series: Book #3 in the “Road Trip Rescue” trilogy. Reviews of Book #1 Here and Book #2 Here!
Spiritual Content- Isaiah 44:22 at the beginning; Prayers, a Blessing over food, & Thanking God; A few talks about God & forgiveness; ‘H’s are not capital when referring to God; Jada wants to show Kimmy, herself, and God that she isn’t a bad person; After doing a random act of kindness, Jada prays to God that she is sharing His love and isn’t a bad person, but the prayer feels hollow like she was missing something; Jada’s sister, Olivia, asks if Jada has prayed about this and says that God can forgive her if she talks to Him, but while Jada knows that God forgives people, she feels like she’s pretty sure she needs to prove herself to Him first; Jada thinks that “unkindness” pours out of her and no one will want to forgive her—whether it be herself, God, or Kimmy; In a negative moment, Jada thinks that if her grandmother knew the truth about what kind of friend Jada is, her grandmother would never pray for her again and can’t look her grandmother in the eye because she feels like she can’t live up to her prayers for Jada; *Spoilers* Towards the end, Jada’s sister tells her that we all make mistakes and do bad things which is why we need God to forgive us; Jada wants God to forgive her but isn’t sure where to begin and realizes she’s been trying to show she deserves forgiveness in order to ask for it and that she can never earn forgiveness; She asks God to forgive her and help her start over; *Major Spoilers* At the very end, Jada and Kimmy talk and Kimmy shares with Jada about already forgiving her; Jada realizes at the very end that she is not a loser or a nobody, but that she is a child of God and has been forgiven because God loves her, not because she earned it *End of Spoilers*; Jada feels like she can feel her grandmother praying for her; Mentions of God; Mentions of prayers, praying, & a prayer closet; A few mentions of a Bible; A couple mentions of miracles; A mention of church going; A mention of Christian pop music;
*Note: A couple mentions of a Veggie Tales character; A mention of someone looking like she saw a ghost.
Negative Content- Minor cussing including: A ‘good grief’, two ‘stupid’s, and three forms of ‘dumb’; A mention of someone muttering “unkind words”; Some eye rolling; Sisters tease and stick out their tongues at each other; Jada lashes out and yells at her sisters in a moment of anger, but quickly realizes that she is in the wrong by doing that; A bit of pain, injuries, & blood/bleeding (barely-above-not-detailed); Almost throwing up; Hitting a dog when driving (the dog is fine, border-line barely-above-not-detailed // semi-detailed); Jada recalls and tells her sisters about when she called her best friend (Kimmy) a “one-handed freak” to be able to hang out with the popular girls, not realizing that Kimmy overheard it; Jada faces a popular girl bullying her at her new school so this, Jada’s reactions, and her feel guilt for what she did to Kimmy are all the major theme of this story; The book starts with Jada finding that someone has written she’s a loser in permanent ink on a whiteboard in her locker; Jada is hurt by the name-calling and realizes the horrible thing she did to Kimmy makes her no better than the girl who is bullying her; Jada’s sister tells her to tell their parents about the bullying, but Jada doesn’t because she thinks it’s what she deserves after how she treated Kimmy (she continues to think that she deserves to be bullied a couple more times); Jada thinks that if she reunites Kimmy with her dog that maybe she won’t be a “bad person anymore”, but then pushes that thought to the side; Jada struggles with thinking that she is a nobody; *Spoilers* When someone claims the dog she thinks belongs to Kimmy, Jada is upset as now she’ll have nothing to offer to Kimmy for forgiveness and thinks she is a terrible person; Towards the end, Jada sobs and thinks that she will be reopening old wounds if she sees Kimmy, so she plans to let Kimmy forget about her even if that means Jada spends the rest of her life regretting how she hurt Kimmy; *Major Spoilers* Jada and Kimmy talk and Kimmy shares that she forgave Jada; Jada sends a message to her bully that she forgives her; The final chapter is set three months later and Jada and Kimmy are friends again *End of Spoilers*; Mentions of deaths & grief (including a wife for her husband); Mentions of bullies & bullying (mean texts, backhanded compliments, being made into an outcast, and whispering about her); Mentions of a dog being hit by a car, injuries, & the dog being fine; Mentions of missing dogs, grief and panic, & the possibility that the dog died or was injured; Mentions of hatred; Mentions of peeing & poop/manure; Mentions of throwing up; A few mentions of nightmares; A couple mentions of threats; A mention of someone acting like a dog committed murder (when he was misbehaving); A mention of stealing; A mention of jealousy;
*Note: Jada sends a call from her mother to voicemail because she doesn’t want to talk to her about a disappointment (which she feels guilt for doing this); *Spoilers* When trying to do good things for others, two of her actions backfire and Jada is faced with animosity; She wonders why it happened and if everyone could already see she wasn’t a good person so there was no point in trying to pretend that she is *End of Spoilers*; During the road trip, Jada helps an old woman to her car to load her groceries & goes to a gas station bathroom by herself (noting this as a safety concern as her older sisters were not with her nor is it mentioned they were watching out for her in these moments); Due to not knowing her well, Jada feels awkward around and intimidated by her grandmother; Mentions of car brands; A couple mentions of a movie (Beethoven); A couple mentions of Bluetooth; A mention of a fiction character (Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh); A mention of the fluoride treatment at a dentist; A mention of Kimmy “finally getting” a cell phone on her thirteenth birthday.
Sexual Content- A few mentions of teen girls fighting over a boy (*Spoilers* Jada’s older sister, Olivia, tells her about when she and her two best friends all liked the same boy and because she didn’t stand a chance of dating him, she didn’t want her friends to either and tried to turn her friends on each other so the boy wouldn’t like them; Her friends figured out what she was doing and stopped talking to her; Olivia wants to make things right with them on their road trip like Jada wants to do with Kimmy; This is a shock to Jada as she has always wanted to be like Olivia and has thought that if she was more like her sister, she would have never hurt Kimmy *End of Spoilers*;
*Note: A couple mentions of dog butts.
-Jada Robinson, age 13
1st person P.O.V. of Jada
183 pages
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Pre Teens-
New Teens-
Early High School Teens-
Older High School Teens-
My personal Rating-
{ Add up to a full star for those who have been bullied and/or been unkind to others }
In the first book of this trilogy, we hear about Jada and how she hurt Kimmy, her best friend. It felt fitting to have the final book be Jada’s story and see redemption not only for Jada, but possibly their friendship too.
As a general rule, I don’t usually like books that have to do with bullies or being bullied, but I think the author handled this topic very well. Jada has the idea throughout this book that she has to earn forgiveness and plans to do random acts of kindness to show that she can be a good person—however, some of this backfires on her and doesn’t go as she hopes. An important lesson has to be learned and it was paced well for the length of the book.
I think personally I would have liked to have Jada’s parents more involved and the fact that they let their teen daughters drive from Florida to Pennsylvania made me worry about possible danger (particularly how Jada goes and helps someone load groceries into her car and go to a gas station bathroom by herself)—but this is probably because I’m safety paranoid and live in a big city. Thankfully, it all goes well for Jada and her sisters, but it might be something some parents might want to discuss with their readers.
Overall, I think this was a solid middle-grade trilogy and this final book wrapped it up in a great way. The faith content was natural and the lessons learned were ones that many readers (including some adults!) need to learn. I look forward to seeing what the author writes next!
See y’all on Friday with a new review!
*BFCG may (Read the review to see) recommend this book by this author. It does not mean I recommend all the books by this author.
