Ten Cents A Dance

Christine Fletcher's Ten Cents a Dance was sent to me as a preview copy.  I was not familiar with it before I received it in a box of books.  But the cover is catchy and I am always up for a new author, so I read it.  I have to say - it caught me and kept me going.  I liked the premise - teenage girl living in Chicago in 1941 - trying to support her family after her father dies.  She is working in a pickling plant BUT can make almost TRIPLE the money if she goes to work in a dance hall.  There's the dilemma - does she do what she know she should, listen to her mother and stay at the plant?  OR can she take matters into her own hands and go to the dance hall, make the larger amount of money AND move them out of the rough neighborhood they live in ALL without her mom ever knowing??  Ruby gets in with the wrong crowd, the wrong boys, and even the wrong girl friends.  This book is powerful and shows what can happen when you get mixed up with the wrong crowd, but I wasn't sure I'd want my teen daughter reading this one until she was VERY MATURE.  There is quite a bit of foul language and some sexual situations as well.  The book redeems itself well and shows that Ruby wasn't mature enough to make her own decisions - that she still did need a mother and family to help her, but the content is such that you would only want mature readers.