Sentenced to Shakespeare - Paperback

by Iris Dorbian (Author)

Leah is a smart and sensitive 15-year-old girl who loves Taylor Swift, binge-watching reality TV and just wants to get through the rest of junior high without any trouble. At least that was the plan, until she is pushed too far by a bully at school and ends up arrested for assault and battery.

Deemed a juvenile offender, Leah is sentenced to an unusual form of rehabilitation: a Shakespeare workshop where she has to memorize scenes with other teen offenders and perform on a big stage for an audience. There are lots of rules to follow; she can't check her phone during class and she definitely can't date anyone else in the program. Leah hates that she was punished for defending herself--her bully deserved it, after all. But most of all, she hates that her bully made her snap. Still, she throws herself into the program anyway, not wanting to disappoint her parents even more than she already has.

Ostracized by her classmates and abandoned by her only friend, Leah finds comfort and solidarity with the other juvenile offenders in the program, whom she relates to more than she expected. Leah even encounters something she's never experienced before--love. But when a new friend throws her under the bus, Leah is forced to confront her choices and stop blaming her bullies, or else risk losing the opportunity she's been given to make a new life for herself.