7.03.2007

Reading Life 11


Harmless by Dana Reinhardt
Best friends Anna, Emma, and Mariah tell a little white lie (that is not so little and not so white really) to get out of a world of trouble with their respective parents. As happens with lies, big or small, a person either comes clean at the outset and suffers immediate consequences or she lets it go and the lie takes on a life of its own; out of the liar's control, that original lie grows and grows and eventually the liar feels, as do the girls in this story, that it's too late and too impossible to fess up. After all, they (meaning their parents, their schoolmates, the police, the community in general) will let it go. But they don't let it alone: there is a violent offender out there who needs to pay for having attempted to assault the girls, and someone will pay. Is it the man accused of the crime or the girls who end up paying? This story will keep you on your literary toes with twists and turns. The girls, each of whom relates the story from their own point-ov-view, falls deeper and deeper into this pit. Each of them suffering in their own ways. An awesome book! And and awesome writer!

No comments:

On Glossaries and Italicizing

Author and creative writing teacher John Gardner contends that "the most important single notion in the theory of fiction" is that...