Author Valerie Ipson Offers YA Readers an Emotional Journey With a Bit of Mystery in Her Debut Novel, IDEAL HIGH

LOS ANGELES - Oct. 22, 2015 - PRLog -- Los Angeles -- Valerie Ipson takes on the issue of bullying in the young adult novel, IDEAL HIGH. With a message of unity, the story illustrates how one young person can spark a change by challenging negative perceptions of people who are different.

Seventeen-year-old Taryn Young is a survivor. So is her former best friend, Chelsea Manor. Both girls struggle in their own way to manage the grief of losing seven of their friends in a fire at the old Ideal Gin Co. where the group had gone after a party at the local country club. Days before the new school year begins at Ideal High School, rumors that the fire was caused by Tim Jenks, an outcast at the school who was bullied by one of the school’s football heroes, emerge. But Taryn was there when the fire took the lives of her friends and Blake, the president of the student council and the boy Taryn was developing a romantic relationship with, and she did not see Tim.

Taryn decides that she will run for president of student council after learning of a list of names of people who deserved to die in the fire scrawled on the door of a bathroom stall at the school. Appalled by the act, Taryn decides that she must make an effort to change the culture of bullying in the school whose motto is “pride, unity, and respect.”

After winning the presidency, Taryn focuses on several projects. Some projects are school events and others are people, including reaching out to a student who dropped out of school at the beginning of her senior year. Taryn succeeds in many areas of her mission but stumbles in others. What Taryn forgets in her quest to make things better at her school is that people are not projects and that change comes from accepting people for who they are.

IDEAL HIGH offers readers the opportunity to view the extent that one act of harassment can affect a school and an entire community. “I read a news article about a bus accident that killed some students as they were returning from a school event,” Valerie reveals. “I wondered how a tragedy like that might affect the school. Would the students treat each other better? Would bullies even stop bullying because life is short and we never know what day may be our last?”

By writing IDEAL HIGH in first person, Valerie allows readers an intimate look at the culture of bullying from Taryn’s perspective as she becomes aware of the way the unpopular are treated in her school and the inaction of teachers and administrators. Valerie says, “Even though I never had the courage to stand up to a bully when I was younger (It’s a different story now!), I was affected by what I saw, and I had compassion for those who were hurt or ridiculed. That’s one of the reasons I wrote the book.”

About the Author

Valerie Ipson is a writer who has served on the board of the American Night Writers Association for two-and-a-half years. Ideal High is her first novel.

Ipson currently writes for the Beehive, a local newspaper in Mesa, Arizona, where she lives with her husband and children.

Ideal High
412 pages
Softcover, $14.99; ISBN: 978-0986424618
E-book, $3.99; ISBN: 978-0986424601
Publication date: February 2015
Published by Riverside Park Press
Available at amazon.com; riversideparkpress.com.
Website: http://www.amazon.com/Ideal-High-Valerie-Ipson-ebook/dp/B00U1Q0QO8/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1442593828&sr=8-1