Shut Up

by Anne Tibbets

Mary's older sister, Gwen, has screwed up everything. Not only is Gwen pregnant at seventeen, but she's also decided to marry the Creep who knocked her up. Now Mary is powerless to stop her family from imploding. Her parents are freaking out, and to top it off, the Creep has a gross fascination with Mary while Gwen enjoys teasing her to tears for sport. Despite her brother's advice to shut up, Mary can't keep her trap closed and manages to piss off Mom so much that it comes to blows. Mary doesn't know what to do, and all her attempts to get help are rejected. When she finally plans her escape, she fails to consider how it could destroy them all.

• ISBN10: 1937957322
• ISBN13: 9781937957322
• Publish Date: 1 April 2012
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Premier Publishing
• Format: eBook
• Language: English

Reviews

[jeannamichel]

Mary has major family issues. Her sister, Gwen, got pregnant by the Creep and now is trying to make Mary’s world a living hell for her. Her parents are too caught up in the latest Gwen scandal to realize that they are ultimately hurting the family by how they are handling these events. Peter tries to give advice to Mary but she’s too young to really grasp what he is trying to say. She needs to learn, as Peter suggested, to shut up so that maybe their family can all live in peace.

The cover just scares me to bits. Mary, the main character, is a tween that seriously has a problem with her mouth (well, her parents have a problem with her talking). So I understand that the pose on the cover is just to show that she will shut up. However, the model looks way older than the tween years Mary is supposed to be in and it still looks like a picture straight out of a horror movie for me.

Tibbets created a cutting, emotional read that is still with me even after weeks reading it. However, this book seemed to go on forever with this one theme: abuse (abusive relationships) and there almost seemed like no redeemable qualities until maybe the very end. The one thing that got me very confused was the way the novel was structured. Tibbets would put things in italics to say that was present (I think) and the normal font would be the past. It was really hard to decipher because Mary kept going back and forth and I had to continually ask myself where I had left off in the past or present. Anne Tibbets wrote this hard novel because she definitely knows how to go down deep into the emotion vault and even if the reader can’t relate to poor Mary, they can cry for her.

Growing up in an abusive house did not help Mary grow at all. It must have sucked because I kept putting myself in Mary’s shoes, along her path and I don’t think I would have survived living like that when I was twelve. It seemed like the world was against her, but especially her parents who seriously need to take some parenting classes to get their heads on straight. Since the most of the other characters were against Mary in some way, I found a really difficult time liking them. However, I enjoyed Peter’s efforts and it seemed that, at times, he was the only one who cared.

Overall, Shut Up cuts readers deep, making them feel for the main character like never before. You will be so shocked, by what occurs in this novel, that you may shut up for a bit too.

[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

Shut Up is a really hard  hitting story. Mary's life is miserable. Because of her spoilt older sister, Gewen, the whole family is stressing out. Gwen must get what she wants, or she throws tantrums to rival a two-year-old. It wouldn't be surprising if her family forgot what her normal voice sounded like, because she's constantly wailing like a banshee at the slightest thing. Nothing is ever good enough. Instead of her parents sitting her down and saying "We're the parents, you're the child. You do what you're told, not dictate to us," they let her get away with murder. Her constant nagging an screaming causes everyone to be miserable, and quick to snap at everyone else.

So when 12-year-old Mary asks too many questions, doesn't act quick enough when she's asked to do things, or gets blamed for something she didn't do and is then called a liar, the treatment she gets is harsh. The way she is spoken to is really disgusting, by both her parents and Gwen. Gwen talks to Mary like she's lower than the dirt beneath her shoes every second of every day, constantly bullying her, calling her nasty names for seemingly simply existing. It's awful, so terrible to read. And on top of that, her mother will result to beating if she deems it necessary. It's a completely miserable existance, and leads to Mary acting drasticallly.

At 118 pages, Shut Up is a very quick read, but it's still a fully formed story and you can't help but get emotionally involved. It's very much like a car crash; it's such a difficult story to read, but you simply can't put it down, wondering if things get any better, or if they get worse. there are several instances in the book which lead you to make assumptions about what might be coming, which lead you to dread getting to the end, because you just don't want those things to happen. You can just feel your heart sink.

There are a few negatives, though. I feel it could have been better edited. There is an instance of where a word is repeated right after it's used, and another instance where Mary's first person narration changes to third; instead of Mary saying "myself", she says "herself". I also felt that some of the dialogue didn't feel natural, sentences that I felt a 12-year-old wouldn't use, or, when there were arguments, considering how much anger there was, some of the things said just didn't feel angry enough. It was a little disappointing, because it kind of jarred me out of the story, but the dialogue issues could just be down to personal preferences.

All in all, a very heart-wrenching, moving story, and one that hists you even a harder to know it's loosely based on the author's childhood. A really enjoyable read.