Review: Exposed by Kimberly Marcus

   Liz is Photogirl; able to sum up everyone in a nickname and knows that what she sees through her camera lens is truth. She loses her best friend, Kate, after Kate accuses Liz's older brother, Mike, of a crime. Liz can't see the big picture anymore like the old Photogirl, the one who was "foreverbest" with the Mistress of Modern Dance(Kate) used to. Told in free verse, the hardcover edition of this 2011 young adult  debut has 288 pages.
    I went through stages in my liking of this book. I was excited to read it, went into reading it with a lot of hope. But when I, as an attentive reader, was able to figure out the secret some 50 pages before Liz, the narrator was able to, I began to grumble and the hope of a good verse novel died. As I drudged through, I grew to love it again. The characters and events felt so real; the emotions searing. Liz's journey from having a great life to having nothing and her reaction and coping with that was amazing, flawless even. There was family tension, character growth, and a great resolution. unlike some verse novels, the events are chronologically ordered and make sense, with a minimal of random side stories from the past and the such. Once you get over the whole secret thing, the novel actually becomes quite gripping.
   Level of Romance: None; it's mostly about the family tension and Liz's burdens of the situation as well as how she deals with it.
Rating: 4 out of 5