Bright

Written by Brigit Young

Narrated by Mara Wilson

Marianne Blume has always known she's not smart.

After years of trying and trying at school, Marianne has mastered the art of getting by on luck, deflection, and her winning personality—that is, until she lands in Mr. Garcia’s class. Suddenly she’s at risk of flunking math, repeating the eighth grade, and being left behind by her best friend, Skyla.

To receive much-needed extra credit and get into high school, Marianne makes the desperate decision to join her school’s Quiz Quest team, only to find out they have problems of their own … and that they need to win the state championships for her to get the credit.

Now Marianne will need to believe she can succeed—like, truly believe it for the first time in her life—while also helping her teammates pull it together. Can Marianne learn to be smart? What does it mean to be “bright,” anyway? And will she be left in eighth grade forever?

Brigit Young (The Prettiest) has written an empowering story about bucking labels, overcoming preconceptions, and learning to hold your head—and hand—up high.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781705085141

Brigit Young

Brigit Young was born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is the author of the middle grade novels Worth a Thousand Words, The Prettiest, and Bright. She currently lives in New Jersey with her husband and daughters.

Reviews for Bright

[reader1009-863136 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

middlegrade fiction, set in Michigan. Marianne does NOT want to repeat the 8th grade, but no amount of tutoring has ever helped her, though she doesn't have any sort of learning disability-- she just stopped trying after too many failures, too many times being teased for being stupid. It's way easier to fail on purpose, and poke fun at herself first. When her math teacher refuses to let her slide by, she's forced to join the uncool kids on the Quiz Quest team for extra credit.The plot sounds a little meh at first, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I connected with these characters -- their struggles and hurts, and all the times thay just neede someone else to stick up for them. Consider myself punched in the feels, multiple times! I liked, too, the incidental diversity of Mar's teammates, and family, and friends' families, and that the struggles, that fear of failure/rejection is something that almost everyone can relate to.