Ms. Brown, I have always enjoyed your plots but the dialogue has made me quit you. The protagonist says, for instance, "I’m not going to let you talk to me like that," and I think, oh, yeah, what are you going to do? Stomp your stiletto heel shoes as you walk out the door? The people sound like characters on the Japanese cartoon network. It’s not only you. It seems as if too many writers can’t get around impossible promises ("I won’t let anything happen to you" as the killer approaches with a gun) and sentimental slosh such as never loving again after messing up the above promise. I used to love Ian Fleming’s "bell shaped" hair on every one of his Bond girls but I was a teenager then. Now? Even my escapism has to seem real.

Right on, Girl.

Now it was a breeze blowing the top open, or "I didn’t know the photographer was looking." How do "conservative" and "semi-naked" work together?

Picture this: A middle schooler is found with marijuana but says it belongs to another child. The school officials take this other child into a private room. On the say-so of the first child, they strip search her. Nope, I still don’t get it. It doesn’t sound right even with an illegal drug.

Holding her until her parent arrives to decide what to do makes sense. She’s a minor. No matter what her reputation is, a parent needs to be present to protect the child. That would protect the school officials also.

We’ve been chipping away at our "rights" for so long that we have lost our outrage. 

My country has done a LOT of things that have made me ashamed of it. Dirty politics, repression of women, segregation, Abu Graib, making up WMD as an excuse to invade Iraq, slavery, Indian massacre, ….how far do you want me to go? But I have HOPE for a more moral, a more compassionate, a more freedom loving country to come. Education is the key and Mrs. Obama has that. That’s what I admire.