FINISHED:

Crutcher, Chris. (2009). Angry management: Three novellas. New York: Greenwillow/HarperCollins.

[ACL review to come...

An overweight teen takes a facially scarred girl to Reno to confront the mother that abandoned her with an abusive father; a goth girl who writes for the school paper fights censorship and falls for the school jock while looking out for her foster sister; and a gay, African American student in a white, rural school finds a pink noose on his locker. These three short stories comprise Crutcher’s latest which also happens to bring back and throw together characters from some of his earlier novels. It’s all quite timely and important, but at the same time overly ambitious, incredibly didactic and message-y: even a devout Christian gives a monologue on how racism and homophobia are wrong (“Jesus didn’t care whether you were some other color than pasty white, or whether or not you were gay. His Father made them and He loved them all.”) In addition, there is a bracketing device involving a teen counselor which goes nowhere and has very little to do with the stories themselves. While it’s appreciated that Crutcher has brought up for discussion a number of pressing issues, it feels a bit overstated and preachy.]

STARTED:
Westerfeld, Scott. (2009). Leviathan. New York: Simon & Schuster.

[Reviewing for ACL.]

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