Anna--pretty, athletic, and popular--has it all, until a tragic car accident leaves her with a broken neck and other numerous complications, and as she realizes that her old self is slowly fading away, she is faced with the pain of her uncertain recovery. Grade 6 Up. After suffering spinal trauma in a car accident, Anna, 17, begins a painful physical and emotional recovery that peels away her old life and strips her down to her very core. A gripping narrative, told with smarting honesty. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. Gr. 8^-12. When an automobile accident leaves Anna with a broken neck and shattered dreams of a black belt in karate, she is forced to come to terms with a life filled with previously unimaginable goals--overcoming debilitating pain, concentrating long enough to complete a simple reading assignment, and sitting and walking without toppling over. She also must sort through the age-old adolescent questions: Who am I? What will I do with my life? Who will love me? Although similarities to Voigt's Izzy Willy Nilly (1986) are obvious, this is a very different book, one able to withstand comparison. It is superbly crafted. The physical pain Anna feels is palpable, and the fear that the doctors aren't quite on target, insidious. Her struggle to master a body that she formerly controlled with such ease and her complete physical and mental collapse when she sees the man who caused her accident are overwhelmingly vivid. Her mother's deep grief, her father's anger, her siblings' wide-eyed wonder at her frailty, and even her boyfriend's fear of kissing her are easily embraced in this Australian import. The title aptly describes Anna's attempt to deal with her bitterly enforced change in life plan, but it is also indicative of the book's startling complexity. Frances Bradburn This Australian import covers much of the same territory explored in Cynthia Voigt's Izzy, Willy Nilly (1986): A popular, physically active teenager is severely injured in an auto accident, and must cope not only with pain and uncertainty about her future, but also with changes in relationships as her friends' lives seem to go on without her. Anna Duncan has just won a karate championship when her neck is broken in a car crash. Faced with the possibility that she may suffer permanent disability, she must rebuild her identity around drastically altered ideas of what a ``normal'' life will be for her. Some friends fail her; others (and her family) are steadfast. One romance founders on guilt and pity; a more mature love grows to take its place. Readers will perceive in the negligent handling of Anna's case a shocking degree of medical malpractice. The story of her recovery is told in the first person in short, unconnected episodes rather like diary entries. Anna's pain, fear, and dissociation from her former self are rendered so convincingly that readers will close the book believing they have encountered a primary source on trauma. (Fiction. 12+) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. 'Disability' isn't a word usually applied to teens, but it's what happens to Anna when a car accident changes her life. Once an athlete, Anna must adjust to vast changes and a future which may never hold complete recovery. There are relatively few YA novels on the market which address issues of coping to physical disability: this provides a very realistic portrait of the physical and mental adjustments demanded by an accident. -- Midwest Book Review ... a partly autobiographical first novel about the rediscovery of self. Before the car accident, Anna Duncan was a confident, pretty and popular karate champion. Now she has to re-establish herself physically and mentally. Age 12 and older -- The New York Times Book Review