Review of Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins

I found this book slow going at first, but I became completely engrossed as I kept reading. 16-year-old Asha is a top-notch tennis and cricket player who, since she "became a woman," has been forced by her family to adhere to the conventions of 1970's India and quit playing sports in public. Her freedom is curtailed even more when she, her older sister Reet, and her mother have to move in with her uncle's family in Calcutta while her father goes to America to look for a job. Her mother has slipped in and out of depression for as long as she can remember, and she and Reet will do almost anything to keep the depression at bay. Secret Keeper is what Asha calls her diary, and as she hides on the roof to write in it, she is observed by, befriended by, and eventually falls in love with the strange boy next door. I won't go into all of the plot twists that make up the story, but I was surprised by the ending. There is an author's note at the end of the book detailing the political situation in India at the time the story was set. Review by Stacy