McDonald’s latest starts with a bang when four teenage criminals express their rage by trashing a local souvenir shop, then setting it on fire. Their crime is compounded when the niece of the proprietor rushes toward the fire, getting nearer and nearer to a propane tank that is about to blow. Leaving the reader in suspense, the novel then backtracks, detailing the sad histories of these four teenage delinquents, each of whom comes from a dysfunctional family. There’s Hollis, a coldhearted mastermind; Alec, a creepy loser with a criminal past; Gabriel, whose family fell apart after his brother’s murder; and Lydia, the daughter of a paranoid survivalist. Fast-paced and instantly absorbing, the book cuts between the various characters, depicting their complex psychological connections to each other and explaining how chance, circumstance, dumb luck, and wrongheaded decision-making led them to become lawbreakers. The fifth perspective comes from the more-together Gem, the niece of the storeowner and the book’s catalyst. Although McDonald (Swallowing Stones, 1997, etc.) has great sympathy and understanding for her angry, troubled characters, the book, which ends with a surprising punch line, is at heart a cautionary tale. It lays out a scenario in which good kids (two of the four offenders are basically decent) can, by taking incremental, even justifiable steps, stray so far from the boundaries of civilized, lawful behavior that there is no pulling back, no avoiding catastrophe, and no hope for a life without criminal penalties. Something to think about. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-385-32662-9
Page Count: 281
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
Garrett’s failure to produce any sympathetic characters makes her debut tough going.
Burglaries turn deadly for a group of spoiled teenagers.
Harper, Alex, Sarah, Paisley, Benji, and Gin come from similarly privileged homes. Their parents make up for a lack of commitment to their high school offspring by providing unfettered access to life’s material benefits: cars, clothes, and costly vacations. When getting drunk on booze filched from their folks’ well-stocked liquor cabinets palls, they invent an exciting new game. Each time one of the teens’ families goes skiing in Vail or snorkeling in the Bahamas, a designated member of the pack breaks into the unattended house and collects an assortment of trophies to be pawned for ready cash. The rules of the looting are strict. Only one member breaks into each house, nothing is to be stolen that can’t be replaced with insurance money, and nothing stolen from other members of the group. Harper adds one more rule: no stealing from her deaf sister, Maggie. After one full round of felonious fun, the wheels start to come off the crime spree. Sarah dies from a drug overdose. The police can’t decide if it’s an accident or suicide, but Harper is sure it’s neither. She thinks Sarah is too smart to overdose on her own and too conceited to kill herself. And since no one outside her little group exists for Harper, one of her fellow thieves must have killed her. Going to the authorities is a no-go because it would reveal the group’s role in the burglaries and spoil their chances of admission to an Ivy League college. So Harper and her chums sit around and wait to see if anything else bad happens. It does. Unfortunately, even Harper’s protectiveness toward her sister carries its own whiff of smugness.
Garrett’s failure to produce any sympathetic characters makes her debut tough going.Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-929345-30-4
Page Count: 206
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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