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Library | Call Number | Status |
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Searching... Mount Angel Public Library | YA MORIARTY | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Amity Public Library | TEEN FIC MORIARTY Ashbury/Brookfield #3 | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Jefferson Public Library | TEEN MORIARTY, J. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | YA Fic Moriarty, J. 2006 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
PERFECT. adj. 1. being entirely without fault or defect: flawless. 2. Bindy Mackenzie, student at Ashbury High. 3. Jaci Moriarty's murderously funny follow-up to THE YEAR OF SECRET ASSIGNMENTS.
Bindy Mackenzie is the smartest girl at Ashbury High. She memorizes class outlines to help her teachers. She holds lunchtime therapy sessions for her fellow students. She is always kind, polite, and helpful. And she wears crazy nail polish to show she's a free spirit.
But something is missing. And at the first session of the Friendship and Development Project, Bindy's worst suspicions are confirmed.
Nobody likes her.
Suddenly things begin to unravel. Bindy fails an exam. She can't sleep. She snaps at the principal. And she gets obsessed with the word "Cincinnati." (cont.)
Author Notes
Jaclyn Moriarty is the prize-winning, best-selling author of novels for young adults and adults including Feeling Sorry for Celia and The Year of Secret Assignments. Jaclyn grew up in Sydney, lived in England, the US, and Canada, and now lives in Sydney again. She was born in 1968 in Perth and studied English and Law at the University of Sydney. She then completed a Masters in Law at Yale University and a PhD at Gonville Caius College, Cambridge. She worked asan entertainment an dmedia lawyer before becoming a full-time writer.
The Asbury Brookfield Series is four novels that revolve around various student that attend the exclusive private school, Asbury High. Many of the students cross over into more than one novel. The series includes: Feeling Sorry for Celia, Finding Cassie Crazy, The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie, and Dreaming of Amelia. Her title The Cracks in the Kingdom won the Aurealis Award in 2014 for Young Adult Novel. It also won the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People¿s Literature.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-Through her diary, memos, letters, e-mails, etc., readers get to know this humorously unlikable, holier-than-thou perfectionist. The twist is that Bindy is being slowly murdered! It's easy to miss that detail, though, as the story focuses on her growth away from over-judging others, specifically her seven fellow Year 11 students in her "Friendship and Development" course at their Australian private school. Forgetting the murder thing-which Moriarty mostly does for 450 pages of this tome-this is an enjoyable, well-paced read with an emotional delicacy weaving through the light humor of Bindy's egocentricity. After Bindy's growth, however, the author postpones the denouement to tie the remaining loose threads up in an action-packed murder-mystery ending, utterly changing the book's tone. Moriarty's fans will miss the fully fleshed-out supporting characters of her earlier novels, but Bindy is a perversely engaging protagonist.-Rhona Campbell, Washington, DC Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Sure, she has ticked off the entire high school, but could someone actually be out to kill the heroine in The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie? by Jaclyn Moriarty, the companion book to Feeling Sorry for Celia and The Year of Secret Assignments. Bindy's journal entries and e-mail exchanges quicken the narrative pace. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Middle School, High School) This companion to Feeling Sorry for Celia and The Year of Secret Assignments (rev. 3/04) is set in the same Australian high school and focuses on yet another of its students. Fans may remember Bindy Mackenzie as the fast typist who transcribed the school hearing in Secret Assignments; the top student whose eccentricities have left her with few friends. As in that book, the story here is told entirely through diaries, memos, e-mail, and letters. Bindy's voice, both written and spoken, is old-fashioned and melodramatic -- and very funny. Well-meaning and sincere, Bindy is hopelessly clueless about how pompous she sounds and how many enemies she's made. Eventually it becomes clear that Bindy is in deep trouble: her habit of listening in on and transcribing people's conversations has apparently angered someone, enough to make her an attempted murder victim. While completely over-the-top, the murder mystery will have readers going back to hunt for clues they missed. Fans of the first two books will be eager to visit Ashbury High and its intrigues again, and to find out just what makes brainy Bindy tick. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Told in emails, transcripts, memos and other musings, Bindy records the eventful start of Year 11 at Ashbury, an Australian private school Moriarty has portrayed in her previous work. Bindy is an overachiever who thinks her classmates, teachers and even the School Board are desperately in need of her input. The FAD ("Friendship and Development") group, a new class taught by Try Montaine, really needs her help. Bindy's hair, worn in two long braids rolled on the sides of her head, becomes symbolic of her rigid, uncool, uptight existence. The murder of Bindy seems impossible, as she is the main character, and Bindy is unaware of her ability to cause enmity with that level of vitriol, being more comfy with just being irritating. Yet upon becoming aware of her own failings, she's equally committed to atoning completely. Bindy's unreliable narration provides most of the humor and suspense, hitting all the typical buttons Moriarty fans have come to expect, including a strange family life and an over-the-top dnouement. As memorably unique as Bindy herself. (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Moriarty follows The Year of Secret Assignments (2004) with another uproarious novel written entirely in diary entries, school assignments, transcripts, and other inventive formats. Once again the setting is Ashbury High, in Sydney, Australia, and Bindy Mackenzie, who had a pivotal cameo in Assignments, returns as the central character. Brilliant, precocious Bindy (who wrote in her diary at age 10, I've been struggling a bit with Ulysses by James Joyce ) is frustrated when her gestures of kindness toward fellow students go unappreciated. Her aggressive resistance to a new required course, Friendship and Development, sharply alienates a group of her fellow classmates, whom she nicknames the Venomous Six. But as she gradually gains self-awareness, it's these students, along with a dreamy transfer student, Finnegan, who embrace, support, and even save her. An additional crime plot is absurdly, gleefully flimsy and preposterous. It's the wild balancing act of shifting formats; the truths about family, school, and social pressures; and Bindy's unforgettable, earnest, hilariously high-strung voice that will capture and hold eager readers. --Gillian Engberg Copyright 2006 Booklist