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Friday, June 01, 2007

Twisted - Laurie Halse Anderson

I'd read some reviews for this book and was excited to see that a young adult author whose work I really enjoy had a new book coming out, particularly one from the male point of view, so I was happy when it finally came to my turn on the library hold list. I was not disappointed, and this book will definitely appeal to both girls and boys.

Tyler Miller has never been a popular boy, and so he creates a plan that he thinks will turn him around...a little graffiti painting on the school ought to do the trick. That is, unless you drop your wallet at the crime scene and are apprehended and assigned to community service the judge. Oops.

There is a bright side to his manual labor, however. Tyler turns into a pretty studly lookin' senior with lots o' muscles. Enter Bethany Milbury. She's cute, popular, and the girl of Tyler's dreams. And she's diggin' him. things are going well for Tyler. Until he makes a big mistake and shows up at a party where there is a lot of drinking and other bad things happening, and he gets accused of a crime that happened there. He did NOT do it, but it's difficult to get other people to believe that. This is an important lesson in how one bad choice can follow you around for a long time and make things pretty miserable for you in ways you never imagined. In making a choice about how to deal with everything that's happening, Tyler considers suicide as one of his options.

This is a book for mature, older readers because of the content, but it is another book from this author that really makes readers think about many important issues, and I appreciate that there is someone out there addressing these things for young adults.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My Review of Twisted:

Laurie Anderson, writer of Speak, writer of Fever and other great novels, brought together this book which I consider nothing at all less than the ultimate masterpiece.

She handles the emotions and thoughts of the main character like an artist holds a paintbrush and she paints an elegant picture of the mayhem of being caught in the act and how it will stain your resume forever.

The story tells of a boy who screws up. And worse, he screws up big time, like, caught by the police big time. And so, he stoops down to community service, spying on the girl of his dreams and dreaming of the girl he spies on.

His tough, semi-verbally abusive father has him in a stranglehold of depression and when he gets blamed for a serious crime that he didn't commit with enormous evidence against him, the wall breaks beyond the wall built by Speak. He does not simply mute himself, but slips into a Twisted state, one reason for the title. The metephorical one.

The litteral view of the title is the twistedness of the poor boy's situation as the crime he is blamed for, (it's a little bit mature for me to be comfortable posting it), and how the Tangled Web of Lies and the whole Boy Who Cried Wolf-esque mix to create a twisted chain.

So, read it, enjoy it and prepare to be irritated because this is a bumpy rollar-coaster ride of misconception and lies.

Also read: Speak! Great novel, Malinda has had something happen to her that has caused her to swear to near silence. Will she speak and reveal her secret or will she hide until the mysterious IT eats her from the inside out. Find out in Laurie Haulse Anderson's SPEAK!

Anonymous said...

I just stumbled across Colin's review. I hope you can tell him thanks from me - it is a heartfelt and moving piece of writing. And it made me feel great!!!!

Thank you!!

(And now I have to go back to working on my next book.)

Laurie