Publisher’s Weekly, July 30th
*The Confessional
J.L. Powers. Knopf, $19.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-375-93872-6
boys-among them witnesses, suspects, friends-react to the news and reveal their own disturbing secrets as they alternately narrate. On the surface, the characters fall into stock roles (the closeted gay friend, the brilliant kid hiding behind a stoner persona, the geeky outcast, the peacemaker, and so on), but the author carefully individuates their back stories even as she links the boys via their common fears. If some of the voices sound a little similar and if some of the action seems implausible, the psychological drama as a whole has enough depth and dimension to compensate. The structure Powers builds is ambitious, and
she manipulates it for maximum surprise. Ages 14-up. (July)
Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2007: Strained racial tensions snap after a student’s violent death. MacKenzie Malone’s dedication to national pride frays relationships at his El Paso high school, where students are still recovering from last year’s suicide bombing of a local bridge by a Mexican national protesting the treatment of immigrant workers. Malone turns up dead hours after a confrontation with a fellow student, and his classmates must examine their own prejudices to restore order in a polarized community. The six distinct voices used to examine the tension between adopted country and ethnic pride rarely falter; the fast pace of events ensure the narrative remains compelling. Convincing friendships and feuds create a sense of the long-standing relationships between classmates and reflect the transitive nature of the high-school social structure. Powers devotes most of his story to establishing those intricate networks, ultimately leaving the motivation for Malone’s murder unclear at best. Though the ending is unsatisfying, the depiction of a post-9/11 world revisiting issues of nationalism and prejudice makes this tale relevant to modern audiences. (Fiction. YA)
2007 Teen Books to Order Now!! (Part 1)–TeenReadsToo (Amazon)
“Another of NewPages contributors makes a big splash with this first novel. Call it Young Adult if you want to, but this book had me turning pages all night long. Definitely in the cross-over category of YA – content is VERY adult, but also VERY real to what so many of our nation’s “children” are witness to every day. This book can get any class of students wanting to read to the end and talking the whole way through about issues of terrorism, racism, classism, sexism (LOTS on the male side of this and the pressures placed on young men), homophobism, family, community, education and religion. Whew!. This book lacks for nothing in terms of topics, yet leaves so much to be discussed and explored.”–Denise Hill, blog, www.newpages.com
