I almost stopped reading at the beginning of Part 5. Not because I didn't want to know what happened, or because I didn't like it, but because I was beginning to feel like Jack, and I didn't like that. Jack feels awful, and yet keeps coming back to the thing that makes him feel awful because he d...
This book was definitely a good one. I've been slowly working my way through all of Andrew Smith's books, and while I don't think that this one is my favorite (that honor probably goes to Winger), it's definitely up there. It's definitely a hard-hitting, thought-provoking book, that's for sure. T...
Mom stopped me. “Stark McClellan.” She said, “You are not leaving this house looking like that.” And I knew what that meant. Dad glared at me. “You look like a goddamned bum.” I stopped at the top of the basement stairs. Mom came o...
I just lay there on the couch under the blankets, sweating and staring out at the dark room. Then I got scared, thinking about what happened with Chase, thinking about that ghost story Tommy told. I got up and went into Tommy’s room. He was in his bed, with his face turned to the door. I couldn’t...
It wasn’t like we hadn’t planned it: It was the one thing that Conner and I had talked about since deciding to take this trip in the first place. Conner had me laughing so hard, I thought I would pee in my pants. It felt good. Finally, good. There were only a few other people in the pub; even the...
He smoked cigarettes. Christopher Szerba was Catholic. He did not give up smoking cigarettes when he gave up the excess consonants. All the Szerba boys were cigarette-smoking Catholics until my father fell in love with my mot...
ALEXANDER MERRIE'S SIBERIAN ICE MAN On Monday of week four, we were more than halfway to our freedom. And on that Monday of week four, Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys was struck by a torrential thunderstorm that started just before lunch. The competiti...
He was on a treadmill in the gym of a hotel at which we were both staying, and I walked past his whirring machine three or four times without satisfying myself that it was really him. Charlie had been one of the youngest of the Moonwalkers, but I knew that even he would be at least 74 now, and th...
But I managed to get out of Unit 113 before I let go any more unrestrained, pleasant chitchat with Sam Abernathy. I jogged off, away from the boys’ dorm on the trail along the lake. The rain felt like a stranger sneezed cold spit-mist on me, and I was feeling a little guilty (and spit on), thinki...
Jack is putting on a big show. I had no idea how they could tell it was morning. Being inside the box was like being trapped in a black hole. I woke when the wooden post Ben used to bolt shut the hatch clattered down against the floor next to my bed. He pushed the door open with the point of his ...