Crushed

Grade 10 Up–The characters in this novel have their secrets and make false assumptions about others, causing them all to be crushed in some way. Audrey's mother died when the girl was young and her father is in financial trouble. Clyde's mother is dying of cancer. Wickham, born of an affair 18 years earlier and new in town, is running from his own secret. The trouble begins when he romances Audrey, who is quickly taken with his seeming sophistication. He, on the other hand, is looking for someone to help him graduate and relies on her academic assistance. Painfully shy Clyde also has a crush on her and uses his father's computer program to investigate Wickham's past. When he tries to share what he discovers with Audrey, she rejects him. In the meantime, a slanderous paper is circulating secrets about students and teachers. When cornered by the school bully, Audrey tells him that Clyde is the author, even though she lacks evidence. This sets in motion the revelation of other secrets and the breaking of hearts. With the exception of Audrey's friend Lea's off-key change in personality, characters and situations ring true. Readers will sympathize with these individuals, some of whom mature, and some of whom do not. This quiet, sophisticated story will appeal to a small, mature audience.–Karen Hoth, Marathon Middle/High School, FL
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Gr. 9-12. Set in the same small town as Crooked (1999) and Zipped (2003),the wife-and-husband team's third novel similarly portrays teens groping for equanimity in hostile territory. Private-school expatriate Audrey and her like-minded friends, newcomers to Jemison High School, feel "like pet rabbits released into the wild." Where there is prey, there are predators, and from the moment that suave Wickham asks Audrey to help him cheat in physics, readers will guess that the naive teen has been targeted by the high-school equivalent of a wolf. Though Audrey's perspective on bliss punctured by betrayal dominates the novel, the absorbing third-person narrative periodically shifts close to Wickham and to Audrey's shy, rebuffed admirer, Clyde, both defined by troubling circumstances at home. Despite the quirky sensibility embraced by Audrey and her pals, who share cucumber sandwiches at lunch and listen to Gilbert and Sullivan, their individuality eventually becomes submerged in a contrived, overburdened story line. But once ensnared by the romance and the tidy-but-satisfying servings of passion, outrage, and poignancy, few teens will reject this on literary principal. Jennifer Mattson
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