TOUCH by Francine Prose - REVIEW #1

Maisie has always been best friends with Shakes, Chris, and Kevin. She hasn't ever had "girl" friends and it has never seemed strange to her that she always hung out with the three boys. They treated her just like one of the guys - until Maisie goes away for a year to live with her mother. After deciding living with her mother and her new husband isn't going to work out, Maisie decides to move home to live with her father, even if that means living with her evil step-mother, Joan. Maisie is different when she comes back. Not in the way she acts or feels inside, but in the way her body looks. While she was away, Maisie developed large breasts. She isn't comfortable with them at all and the thing she dreads the most about them is how they might change the way Shakes, Chris, and Kevin react to her.
Never has she ever been more right. The boys act totally different and as much as she tries to return things to the way they used to be, it never feels the same.

The friendship between Maisie and the boys change even more after an incident on the school bus. But, what really happened? Every time Maisie tells the story it seems to change until she can't even remember what happened anymore. All she knows for sure is she feels desperately alone. All of her classmates avoid her and worst of all, she doesn't have her best friends to rely on anymore.

TOUCH is a good example of how stories can take on a life of their own. Unfortunately, after the first version gets out, there is usually little a person can do to stop it. Maisie learns first hand how it feels to be the focus of the entire school - and not in a good way.