Comment

Dec 26, 2017
Grafton captured my interest with her opening chapter about a female teen being sent to talk to the school's VP. The following chapters expand on that incident to show its relevance to current events in which Kinsey gets involved. Although there are numerous teens involved in the plot as well as their parents, Grafton repeats events so that finally the names, their actions, the consequences of those actions stuck in my mind. The side stories, used to show the passage of time, involve those of her constant neighbors and a continuation of a life threat from a character in the last novel. There are just a few adventurous scenes in this novel that are sprinkled in after the middle of the story. Grafton includes several themes dealing with teens in this novel that one could almost think she was writing for that age group. She includes issues like bullying, drinking and smoking, absent parents/blended families/divorced parents, peer pressure, homophobia/coming out, privileged vs less fortunate teens, teen jail sentences, but the sexual abuse issue would be pushing it a bit far as an appropriate read for an older teenager, IMO. Grafton's writing strategy of inserting chapters describing events in past years did not bother me with this book as such chapters occurred infrequently, rather than in alternate chapters. Another good book by Grafton that didn't disappoint. She dribbles out the details of the teens' past destructive actions so that reading about those events do seem repetitive, but each time Grafton offers the reader more clues as to who the culprit might be.