Exposed
Kimberly Marcus
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Release Date: February 22, 2011
Pages: 288

Rating: 2.5 stars

In the dim light of the darkroom, I’m alone, but not for long.
As white turns to gray, Kate is with me.
The background of the dance studio blurred, so the focus is all on her
legs extended in a perfect soaring split.
The straight line to my squiggle,
my forever-best friend.


Sixteen-year-old Liz Grayson is photogirl—sharp, focused and ready to take the world by storm with her camera. But Liz’s entire life is called into question when her brother is accused of a crime—and the accuser is Liz’s own best friend. As the aftershocks from that accusation rip through Liz’s world, everything she thought she knew about photography, family, friendship and herself, shifts out of focus. And for the first time in her life, Liz finds herself unable to trust her own point of view. Told in stunning, searingly raw free verse, Exposed is Kimberly Marcus’s gut-wrenching, riveting debut and will appeal to fans of Ellen Hopkins, Laurie Halse Anderson and Virginia Euwer Wolff.


Exposed’s premise intrigued me from the start. My first thought after reading it was actually, oh maybe it’ll be like Speak! And then I noticed it would be in verse and I thought – hey cool, kind of like Ellen Hopkins. I really wanted to like Exposed more but it just came up short of my expectations I had for it.

My big thing with Exposed was that I had trouble connecting with the story and characters. I am not huge on poetry, and I refused to pick up any books in verse until last semester I had to read Impulse by Ellen Hopkins for my YA Lit class at school. Exposed just didn’t make me feel anything for the characters – and with the situation at hand, I thought it’d be an emotional fiesta.

 Now that’s not to say the writing wasn’t good – I absolutely loved the writing of the verse. There were so many beautiful phrasings that when I read them I just smiled.

I also had a bit of an issue with the relationships in the book. None of them felt authentic. I found Liz and Kate’s friendship really odd. The one relationship that seemed to work in the book was Liz and Brian. I found them adorable in the few appearances Brian made.

I really like the cover – It’s quite eerie and it’s a cover that really makes me think for a second when I look at it. Exposed is a fast read – I read it in about an hour and a half. I just didn’t feel much of anything and I just breezed by the pages. For me it’s a book that I’d suggest waiting to get from the library or borrowing from a friend.

While I wasn’t super crazy about this one, here are some reviews of others that were:

Good Choice Reading
Stacked Books
Y.A. Love