The Tulip Touch

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This is the story of a strange and disturbing friendship seen through the eyes of Natalie as she gets to know Tulip Pierce, a delinquent girl most others go out of their way to avoid. Nobody wants Tulip in their gang. She bunks off school, is rude to the teachers and makes herself unpopular with her classmates by telling awful lies. But none of this matters to Natalie who finds Tulip's behaviour exciting and dangerous. At first she doesn't care that other people are upset by Tulip's bizarre games but as the games become increasingly dangerous and sinister, Natalie realises that Tulip is going too far. Way too far . . . Tulip becomes even more destructive and after a row with Natalie she commits a terrible crime. This is a compelling story in which Anne Fine explores the dark side of a friendship bordering on obsession, and sensitively depicts one girl's gradual decline into hostility and violence.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

"This exceptionally insightful tale offers a fascinating study of a much-victimized child striking out at the world," said PW in a starred review. Ages 12-up. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

Gr 6-9‘A provocative, disturbing novel about an intense friendship between two girls, narrated by Natalie after she extricates herself from Tulip's control. When her parents take over the management of a hotel, Natalie befriends her new neighbor, though she senses something strange about her. She soon learns that Tulip is an inveterate, glib liar whose attendance at school is sporadic and whose behavior is vindictive. Still, Natalie is loyal to her exciting, unpredictable friend. As the years pass, Natalie finds herself simultaneously fascinated and repelled by Tulip, who is capriciously cruel to her and whose invented games seem to center on causing others discomfort. Eventually Natalie becomes frightened by her friend's reckless acts of arson and her inclination toward sadism. She abruptly and painfully pulls away from her. But this self-rescue comes at the price of great guilt. Though Natalie rightly questions the lack of responsibility adults in authority have taken for the sordid, warping circumstances of Tulip's home life, she knows she will feel forever that she abandoned Tulip to her inner demons. This deeply felt, convincingly described examination of a complicated relationship leaves many issues properly unresolved. It would be a wonderful springboard for discussions about the limits of individual accountability, the proper scope of community obligations, and many other aspects of interpersonal commitment. It is also a very good read.‘Miriam Lang Budin, Mt. Kisco Public Library, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Gr. 4^-9. There's not much comedy this time in Fine's disturbing story, only the nervous laughter evoked by cruel insults and spiteful tricks. With thrilling intensity, she dramatizes the attraction the good girl feels for the dangerous outsider. The narrator, Natalie, feels safe in her loving home, which is a country mansion hotel, where her gentle father is the manager. He forbids her to go to her classmate Tulip's home, a shack dominated by Tulip's abusive, terrifying dad; but Tulip is welcome at the hotel, and the girls become inseparable at school. Spellbound, Natalie watches Tulip run wild. Then, gradually, Natalie joins in the troublemaking, giving up her drab, nondescript self to cry "Havoc!" She is at once pitying, scared, disgusted, and enthralled. With huge effort, she finally breaks free and saves herself ("it was like coming out of the hospital") but only by destroying Tulip, who then spirals totally out of control and brings everything crashing down. Even in her funniest stories, such as Flour Babies (1994), Fine is didactic; here the moralizing is direct (What chance did Tulip have in her desolate home? Why didn't anyone help her?), but the message grows right out of an action-packed story that not only humanizes the bully but also reveals the ugly secrets of the respectable. (Why do we enjoy watching a building in flames? Who is guilty? What is evil?) The plush hotel setting with its bored guests is a perfect backdrop, and readers will be as excited as Natalie by the wild, subversive invader. They will swallow this book in one gulp, and then they might want to talk about it and go on to read Cynthia Voigt's funny Bad Girls (1996) and, for older readers, Margaret Atwood's adult novel Cat's Eye (1989). --Hazel Rochman

Horn Book Review

Fiction: I Natalie's exclusive friendship with the thrillingly reckless Tulip becomes increasingly dangerous, and she must decide to save herself even as she acknowledges her troubled friend's terrible desperation. The talented author cuts to the emotional bone in this novel of friendship, truth, and the uneasy weight of human responsibility. Horn Rating: Outstanding, noteworthy in style, content, and/or illustration. Reviewed by: la (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

The author of Alias Madame Doubtfire (1987) and, more recently, Step by Wicked Step (1996) mines a darker vein with this study in malevolence. Exploring the countryside around the elegant old hotel her father is now managing, Natalie first sees Tulip standing in a field holding a kitten; later in school Natalie makes overtures of friendship, not realizing until too late that Tulip is a social outcast and perennial discipline problem as well. Enthralled by Tulip's fearlessly antisocial behavior, Natalie surrenders her will and common sense, playing along in a succession of pranks, cleverly subtle harassment, and quiet, mean games with hair-raising names--Rats in a Firestorm or Road of Bones. In Fine's view, Tulip is to be pitied as much as feared, for her twisted, uncontrolled nature has been molded by an abusive father--but all of the adults in the story come in for a share of the blame, too, aware of Tulip's situation but, beyond handwringing, allowing it to continue. After a game of Wild Nights ends in arson, Natalie finds herself abruptly free of Tulip's spell and breaks off the friendship. Tulip retaliates, and on Christmas Eve, the hotel goes up in flames. Fine expresses with canny precision her protagonist's ambivalence and soul- searching, challenging readers to see how fascinating such repellent behavior can be. A moving, complex story. (Fiction. 11-13)