I feel as if I'm always saying this in my reviews of Neal Shusterman's books, but I can't think of another contemporary author who hits the mark so resoundingly time after time, coming up with stories that mix powerful philosophy, gripping suspense, painfully real characters and shocking twists to an effect that I have rarely, if ever, seen from anyone else. Neal Shusterman simply won't ever settle for anything less than the very best that he has to offer, and the big winner is his readers, who have been the beneficiaries of a long line of his outstanding novels from Unwind to Full Tilt, The Shadow Club to Bruiser. It seems to me that Neal Shusterman is already deserving of mention among the recent greats in the young-adult field, authors like Robert Cormier, Katherine Paterson, J.D. Salinger and William Golding, and I hope that some day his legacy may even be talked about on the same level as literary demigods from the past such as Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, Louisa May Alcott and Charles Dickens. I see no limit to how high Neal Shusterman can ascend as a writer, to what he can accomplish going forward from this point in his career. The surprises that build up so masterfully in Dread Locks go beyond what I ever would have guessed, getting behind our normal reactionary defenses to reach our hearts in a way that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Other books do this, too, but Dread Locks carries a message (more than one, really) that is eminently worth being delivered, an indispensable challenge to the misguided rationales that all of us erect around our lives to protect the tenets that we've convinced ourselves are true even if they obviously aren't. It's so easy to wrap ourselves in a cocoon of what we want to pretend is real, and put on our blinders just as the equine handlers do for racing horses, so that we can go straight ahead and not have to worry about being spooked by the truths that jut up around us like unscalable mountains. No one is capable of ripping off our blinders the way that Neal Shusterman does, giving light the chance to stream in and illuminate reality for us even if we'd rather not look; however, souls brave enough to be shown the truth might find that as their comprehension of their own unfathomably deep lack of understanding increases, so does their ability to accept the things they cannot change, and therefore to stay afloat when the swift rivers of life threaten to drag them beneath the turbulent waters' surface. "If love of money is the root of all evil, then having money is the root of all boredom. When you can have everything, you find there's nothing you really want. When you can do anything, you find there's nothing you really care to do. You become lazy. Life feels like a boulder you don't want to lift." —Parker Baer, Dread Locks, P. 137 And this is exactly the situation in which Parker Baer finds himself as Dread Locks begins. He's a fifteen-year-old "fat cat" living with wealthy parents in a wealthy neighborhood, never really wanting for anything that his parents can't give him. A common theme in Neal Shusterman's novels is the idea that we humans tend to stagnate if we stop moving forward, even if that halt in movement is a result of our getting everything we think we really want. The idea is that humans can't maintain relevant lives without a continual flow of new challenges and demands—and yes, even troubles—coming our way. When we stop growing we immediately start dying, regardless of our circumstances, and so we always need that push to movement to keep us from growing fatally complacent. Parker has simply been given a life of too much luxury; therefore, when temptation and seduction arrive next door all in the form of one teenage girl, he's halfway done for before he even meets her. Tara is her name, and she has a style about her that could captivate anyone, and they would never even realize that they had indeed been taken prisoner. But Tara isn't what she seems, not in any way, shape or form, and as Parker dives deeper into the cesspool of secrets that she holds back from the rest of the world, he'll have to find a way to hold out against her strange power over him if he wants to win back control over his own life, or save the lives of his friends and family. Successfully resisting Tara's mesmerizing pull is the only way for Parker to earn a happy ending; if there is, in fact, a happy ending left to salvage. If you pick up Dread Locks and notice that it's book one of the Dark Fusion series, I implore you not to write it off as a typical "toss-off" beginning book to a new series. If every other author in the world would write a toss-off in this case, I can assure you that Neal Shusterman has done nothing of the kind. Dread Locks packs the punch of some of Neal Shusterman's greatest novels, filled with all of the escalating suspense and powerful philosophy that you'll find in stand-alones such as Downsiders and Bruiser. Dread Locks is an incredibly potent story that kept me riveted until the awesome, stunning conclusion, and I would give it three and a half stars.
English 425tttttSubmitter’s name ____Renee Hess_________Book BanktttttBook Bank subject: _Horror__________Reference information: Title Dread LocksAuthor Neal ShustermanPublisher Penguin GrouptYear 2005# of pages 164tGenre FictionReading leveltInterest level Ages 11 and upPotential hot lava:Really not an issueGeneral response/reaction:My opinion about this book is a little conflicted. I felt that the story line was a little hard to get in to and the passages seemed to take forever to read. I enjoyed the book a little more towards the end, but then I hated the ending. Overall, I generally didn’t care too much for this book and I don’t believe I would suggest reading it.Subjects, Themes, and Big Ideas:Friendship, Betrayal, Figuring out what really matters in life, Characters:Parker Baer—the main character that is a fifteen year old boy that has everything in the world he could want until a strange girl moved in next doorTara—strange girl around fifteen that moves in next doorGarrett—Parker’s brother that gets taken under the wrath of TaraKatrina—Parker’s sister that gets taken under the wrath of TaraPlot summary:Fifteen year old Parker Baer lives in a huge house filled with everything he could ever have dreamed of having. Parker struggles to find something to occupy his time because when you’re a kid that has everything nothing ever seems that exciting anymore, that is until the day Tara moved in. Tara was a young girl around Parker’s age that had long blond curly hair, a memorizing face, and she always wore her sunglasses. Parker and Tara became close friends. It wasn’t until a week or so after her move that Parker started noticing people at his school change. Everyone seemed to be turning a pale gray color, drinking tons of milk, not caring about anything, and eating mud. Parker fears that Tara is at the root of all of these problems. Parker ends up spending more time with Tara and in the process Tara ends up turning Parker into what she is, a Gorgon. Parker finally understands why Tara always wears her sunglasses. Whenever Tara looks at someone she turns them to stone very slowly. Their bones and heart turn hard and they are forever a statue in time. Parker knows that Tara can’t be killed unless someone chops her head off or Parker, who has the same powers, looks directly at Tara and turns her to stone. Parker turns Tara to stone and Tara does the same to Parker. He had stopped her from destroying any more lives with only the result of him being a stone statue until time destroys every grain of his stone body. Strengths (including reviews and awards):I liked Parker’s character, the author allowed you to learn a lot about him.I like the historical descriptions discussed in the book which allowed me to vividly imagine Tara’s house.Drawbacks or other cautions:The ending was horrible because the main character dies.The story line was a little too far fetched making it completely unrealistic.It took forever to read even though the book is not long at all.The writing style did not hold my attention.Teaching ideas:Take students to an art gallery to observe historical art such as paintings and sculptors
What do You think about Dread Locks (2005)?
I think that this book had a good concept, but for me it just didn't follow through in the 'interesting' category. Honestly, I didn't like the girl, Tara, from the beginning. She was pretty jerky. Also, I just don't get the dark chills from this book everybody else gets... I mean, it's pretty obvious what is happening. This book is very predictable, so I don't see the shock factor some people get. Then some of the parts were just so slow it took me a while just to read them. Then to top it all off, the ending was horrible. I would not recommend this book to anyone.
—Sydney →☺
Pvmom and Blasterbot both read this book before me and deemed it trash, or something along those lines. I'll just say, I can see why that would be. Parker Baer was never very relatable. I can't relate to filthy-rich-kid problems. I could perhaps relate better if it were a middle-class kid at a rich-kid school. That would make him different, give him a little bit of an emotional twist that he wouldn't otherwise have, and this emotional perspective would perhaps convince me of why Tara might want to choose him, why he would stand out and feel right. (Which brings me to this side point--what makes people too hard or too soft or just right? What about them is hard or soft or just right? That was never explained to my satisfaction.) As "Baby Baer" was never really relatable in the first place, I was totally out of it when he started doing Tara-like things. I didn't come with him on that journey into Tara-ness (er, Gorgonity?) and so didn't relate to his hunger to turn people. Also, Goldilocks and the Three Bears was just really forced. I don't think that should have been in there.
—Nix
Mr. Shusterman conflates the fairy tale of Goldilocks, that unrepentant little housebreaker, with the myth of Medusa, a creature out of ancient Greek lore. Bowing to no one’s rules save her own, Tara comes off as being, well, just a touch boring. All humanity has burnt out of her long ago and all that’s left is her insatiable hunger, her simmering anger against her own kind and her yearning for a partner in crime. She fascinates but only in the way a snake or scorpion does—with the recognition that you’re in the presence of something not quite like yourself and possibly menacing as well.If, as a character in the play “Jeffrey” once stated, evil is boring and one note, Tara definitely fits the bill. All the signs are there: the ignoring of human rules, the certainty that these rules aren’t meant for those like herself, the consideration of human beings as being nothing more than food and violence being the only way she has of dealing with threat or attack.So, robbed of any consideration for the Gorgon cast adrift in the modern world, all our attention and sympathy focuses on young, rich, bored Peter Baer. But, since he’s spoiled rotten from the very start of the novel, Mr. Shusterman has his work cut out for us to see him as sympathetic. He doesn’t quite succeed since Peter succumbs to the seductive yawning abyss of Tara’s hunger just a little too easily. In the end, he redeems himself but at such a price all you’re left with is a faint sense of relief, too dim to be triumph, too numbing to be despair.
—Marsha
