D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

Nineteen-year-old Sarah has just crashed and burned, flunking out of
college, and returns to her home town in quest of answers that are not
quickly forthcoming in this story of the lasting effects of being a victim.
Her first impulse is to blame somebody else for her failure, but it seems
there's nobody who can be blamed but herself - or, is there?

Angel Rock Leap is about how life passions become lost in a sea of
'practical' decisions, of how trauma holds lasting ramifications as victims
repeat self-defeating patterns and attitudes, and of how recovery is gained.

Readers follow Sarah's return home and learn what it takes to make new
memories out of bad experiences and how to juggle the survival instinct and
an impulse to run away with the purpose of confronting one's past in order
to change the present and future.

Readers follow the evolution of Sarah's growth, absorbing passages that
deftly display logic and emotional processes: "Too many people are making me
feel like not a day has gone by since I last saw them," I said. "And that
would be OK if things didn't completely suck... the last time I saw them."

Sarah has let men and women hurt her throughout her life. It's time for a
different way of communicating, confronting, and (ultimately) healing from
her wounds. But how?

Angel Rock Leap becomes not just a scene from the past, but a place where
old acquaintances come together to examine connections that were dangerous,
destructive, or divisive. As Sarah uncovers the routes to different choices
in her life, readers will find themselves immersed in her emotional roller
coaster ride which ultimately lends perspective and insight into the process
of forming better interpersonal connections.

Angel Rock Leap wraps a diverse selection of themes (alienation, bullying,
and how victims turn tables to become something greater than their pain)
into its story, and is a strong recommendation for fiction readers seeking
emotional stories of protagonists who hover at the intersections of
life-changing events and decisions.


Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (01/16)

"Angel Rock Leap" by Ellen Weisberg and Ken Yoffe is a touching story about finding peace in adversity. When nineteen-year-old Sarah is asked to leave the science program she is studyingin Boston, she returns home to her small town. While she is disillusioned because she failed, she also knows that she was pursuing a dream that was never hers. Her true love is writing.

Returning home, with a small inheritance from the loss of both of her parents, she only has one friend waiting for her when she gets there. Sarah is still very much hung up on the things that happened in her past. One was the loss of a childhood friend when he moved away; another was being dumped by a boyfriend in her teens, and the big one - memories of being bullied in high school.

Seeking employment at a small café, Sarah runs into the woman who was her nemesis all throughout school. Having failed at her own attempts to escape their hometown, this womancontinues to try to make life miserable for Sarah. Both women have much in common, but unfortunately,everything revolves around the incidents and people that were painful for Sarah.

As the people involved come back into Sarah's life, she has to learn how to get past her anger and hurt at how she was treated, so she can live to her full potential. When she encounters theman who disappeared when they were children, she discovers he is stuck in his own way. They both need to realize that they have to take responsibility for themselves and move on with their lives. It is not easy, but it can be done.

"Angel Rock Leap" by Ellen Weisberg and Ken Yoffe is so realistic and covers relevant issues affecting society today. The characters truly seem like real people to me. I felt their anger andangst permeating into my hands through the pages of this novel. I could easily relate to some of the issues that the protagonist has to overcome, such as learning how to get past hurt andanger caused by people not worthy of our energy.While this novel is written about young adults, I think readers of all ages will enjoy it, and find themselves relating. "Angel Rock Leap,"would be a great selection for a reader's group.

Review from Kirkus
What at first appears to be an overblown high school drama proves to be an astute look at the painful connection between low self-esteem and bullying. After her professors encourage her to quit her undergraduate degree in pharmaceutical science, 19-year-old Sarah returns to her hometown of Palenville, New York, where bad memories and old rivalries await her. While she is certainly not the first college student to have picked the wrong major, Sarah quickly succumbs to melancholy as she replaces her dream of curing the illnesses that took her parents with desperate fantasies of winning over the old classmates who once rejected her. The narrative is interspersed with flashbacks from school and Sarah's short stories and poems, which are unfortunately too similar to each other to firmly establish Sarah as the budding writer that she hopes to be now that her pharmaceutical career is over. But authors Weisberg (Making Emmie Smile, 2012, etc.) and Yoffe develop Sarah's obsession with the initially bland high school bully, Pamela, with great skill. Pamela, now a waitress, barely remembers Sarah's name when she takes her order at a diner, but Sarah persistently picks at the scab of their rivalry until the truth about Pamela and Sarah's ex-boyfriend Gary, as well as her long-lost childhood sweetheart, Doug, bleeds out. The French doors of Sarah's dilapidated apartment also create an unsettling, almost gothic, backdrop for emotionalturmoil when a creepy man from Sarah's past turns up on her doorstep. Too pushy to take no for an answer, Sarah's stalker forces her to resolve her victim mentality and defend herself--until he reveals a secret that changes the way she sees him. While the other characters seem to have given up on life before their time, Sarah's best friend, Scott, balances their negativity with quirky observations and good cheer: "You can't live without passion. It might get cooled from time to time, but it's always there. Just waiting to be reheated. Waiting to be revived. Waiting to chase after dreams." A unique voice emerges from an unlikely heroine in this quickly paced coming-of-age story.