Book Report: If I Tell by Janet Gurtler

My Thoughts

I wanted to love this book. It seemed promising enough. I mean, at it’s bare bones If I Tell was good. The main character, Jasmine, is a bi-racial girl in a white-washed suburb in Washington. If feeling like an outsider because of her skin color isn’t bad enough, Jasmine also sees Simon, her mother’s boyfriend, mackin’ on some other girl at a party. (Do people even use the word “macking” anymore?). Jasmine struggles with how to deal with this situation: how will she keep her cool around Simon? He’s been a good friend to her, and he is one of only two black people in Jasmine’s life. She also struggles with how to approach this issue with her mom– if she even should bring it up. Because Jasmine’s mom is pregnant, and Simon is the father.

If I Tell also deals with the issue of postpartum depression, which adds depth to the storyline. Jasmine was born when her mother was a teenager and unprepared to take care of a child on her own. So, Jasmine was raised by her grandparents. Now, Jasmine’s mom has a second chance at being a parent, and all throughout her pregnancy she’s excited by the idea. But after Jasmine’s mom gives birth, the depression settles in. The moment she’s been waiting for for nine months disintegrates. It’s truly heartbreaking.

But…the rest becomes really muddled. I mean, if you’re looking for an “issue book”, If I Tell really fits the bill. Infidelity, racism, and broken families aside, this book also deals with…molestation, alcoholism, homosexuality, AIDS, drugs, psychotic ex-girlfriends, death, uh…and sexual assault. I just felt like all of these issues piled into one book that was too much for a book that has a little more than 200 pages.

I also didn’t care for the author’s approach to sex. Or maybe it’s really Jasmine’s view of sex, but sometimes it’s hard to separate the two from the message. Most of the time, whenever the topic of sex was brought up, slut-shaming was involved. Even more, the “slut” in question was an adult very capable of making adult decisions. I don’t know why this character’s sex life was blamed on her troubled past.

Overall,
This book was okay. I think there was a good story here, but all of the other characters’ problems was a distraction.

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