Sometimes students are looking for a good mystery, and Nancy Werlin is good for that. This book was published back in 1998, so I wish the cover looked a bit more modern, but at least it's still in print! David is seventeen and was recently on trial for the murder of his girlfriend. Therein is one mystery--how did she die? Why was he tried? Why does he have to move away from his hometown? The book opens with David moving into an apartment of his aunt and uncle's in Cambridge. He's repeating his senior year of high school and starting over with no friends in a new town. But a young college artist befriends him and so does a boy at school. The second mystery is that his cousin Kathy committed suicide at age 18 in his apartment, but the family hasn't recovered. Kathy's parents don't speak to each other and Kathy's younger sister is a little hellion who makes David's life miserable.
One thing that really bothered me about this YA novel is that David's voice isn't authentic. It's too old for his age, no matter what his circumstances are. Would a 18-year-old kid really think, "I wondered why the skinhead at school chose to expose his differentness so openly"? I don't think so. There were several other moments where the characterization just didn't feel right. The plot moves along quickly though, so some kids will just ignore the things that bugged me. :)
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