L. Divine, Drama High: The Fight

Drama High: The Fight

L. Divine

Kensington Dafina, June 2006, $14.95

ISBN: 0758216335

In Compton, California South Bay High School basketball star Kalvince Alonzo Jenkins, Jr., KJ for short, tells his girlfriend Jayd Jackson that they are through, as he is making it with someone else willing to go all the way with him. She is upset, but with her close friends Nellie and Mickey at her side, she moves on past the disappointment of her love life being shattered.

After working all summer at Simply Wholesome, Jayd returns to school hoping this year will be quieter and not another sentence at "Drama High", where she knows being an outsider bussed in means the locals assume she will steal from them. However, her former best friend Misty still has it in for her, and persuades KJ's current squeeze Trecee into challenging Jayd to a cat fight. Though uninterested in a fight or KJ, as she has found student Jeremy more fascinating and kinder than her ex, though he is white, Jayd knows she has no choice if she is to attend school with her head held high by defending her honor.

This is a captivating look at teen life at a middle class predominately white high school, in which the star of the tale, Jayd, is bussed in along with about thirty other black students. Her insight into the drama of surviving high school is terrific, as rivalries are the norm. Readers will appreciate the first Drama High tale starring a strong support cast and a heroine who just wants a quiet school year and wonders if that is asking too much?