Tag Archives: small town

Review: Breakout by Kate Messner

Book Review and Content, Clean Fiction, Contemporary, Middle Grade 8-12, , , , , ,
Breakout by Kate Messner

Breakout
Kate Messner
Bloomsbury
Published on June 5, 2018

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Breakout

Nora Tucker is looking forward to summer vacation in Wolf Creek–two months of swimming, popsicles, and brushing up on her journalism skills for the school paper. But when two inmates break out of the town’s maximum security prison, everything changes. Doors are locked, helicopters fly over the woods, and police patrol the school grounds. Worst of all, everyone is on edge, and fear brings out the worst in some people Nora has known her whole life. Even if police catch the inmates, she worries that home might never feel the same.

Told in letters, poems, text messages, news stories, and comics–a series of documents Nora collects for the Wolf Creek Community Time Capsule Project–BREAKOUT is a thrilling story that will leave readers thinking about who’s really welcome in the places we call home.

My Review

I’ve read several books lately that show racism and its pervasiveness in schools and communities. BREAKOUT did an amazing job showing what might be called more subtle racism—things where you might at first dismiss the incident as not a big deal or the result of some oversensitivity. The storytelling peels back those layers of indifference and shows the harmful, ugly truth. Telling the story through Nora’s and Elidee’s letters, text messages, poetry, and recorded conversations created the feel of a candid view into the small community.

There are so many things I like about BREAKOUT. Elidee’s poetry and her admiration for Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jacqueline Woodson. Lizzie’s parody news articles. The fact that we get Nora’s perspective as the prison superintendent’s daughter and Elidee’s as the sister of an inmate. I love that the book also includes a reading list of other books on these topics, from books for young readers to texts more appropriate for teen readers.

While the social issues are a solid, important part of the story, at its core, this is a tale of three girls who learn what it is to be friends. To take chances, to trust one another, to forgive, to put themselves in the other girls’ shoes. All those reasons make BREAKOUT a great read.

Content Notes for Breakout

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Nora and Lizzie are from a small, rural, mostly white town (except for the prison, where a majority of the prisoners are black.). Elidee is black and new to the town. Two inmates from the prison escape: one black, one white. The story shows instances of racism and prejudice—most are fairly subtle, like one store owner only enforcing a rule about backpacks being held on the counter when a black customer enters the store.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Nora, Lizzie, and Elidee and their families all help at a church volunteer event making a ham supper for the officers searching for the escaped inmates. They’re all part of the church community.

Violent Content
Teachers rush Nora and her friends inside a school building when officers announce that the escaped inmates are nearby. Accusations emerge stating that some officers physically harm prisoners. A young man is killed trying to evade police. (Nora and her friends don’t witness any of that.)

Drug Content
None.

Note: I received a free copy of BREAKOUT in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links which do not cost you anything to use but which help support this blog.

Review: All the Rage by Courtney Summers

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

All the Rage
Courtney Summers
St. Martin’s Griffin

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

In this small town, you don’t accuse the sheriff’s son of rape. But that’s just what he did to Romy Grey. No one believes her. Her accusation becomes the stick her former friends use to beat her. There’s only one place Romy can go to find peace. At the restaurant on the edge of town, no one knows Romy’s past. Handsome grill cook Leo likes her. Really likes her.

But when those two parts of her life collide and a girl goes missing, Romy has nowhere to hide anymore. She finds herself cornered and terrified by a town that wishes she were gone instead of the beautiful missing girl. As pieces of a night Romy can’t remember begin to fall into place, she learns another brutal truth. A truth she can’t keep quiet any longer.

To many contemporary YA readers, this isn’t an unfamiliar story: girl gets raped; town crucifies her for telling the truth. It’s been told before. What makes All the Rage so powerful and fresh is Summers’ intense, evocative writing.

Romy’s situation ultimately places a larger burden on the town and forces them to confront their own fears. At the beginning of the story, no one wants to cross the sheriff. Not even Romy’s own mother. But the illusion that this is a sustainable way of life is dismantled brick by brick as the story unfolds and the cost of turning a blind eye rises to terrible heights.

It definitely brings to mind the famous quote by Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Language Content
Extreme profanity and some crude language, infrequent use.

Sexual Content
Romy remembers being raped. It’s pretty raw. There are some descriptions of the physical event but what’s more center-stage and so powerful about Summers’ writing is always the emotional impact on the character.

There are some explicit sexual comments made at Romy or in her presence.

Later, Romy has an opportunity for a relationship with a boy who’s kind to her. We see her trying to process her past through this new relationship. There are some explicit details about her encounters with him. He respects her and is often confused by her mixed signals.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
In the locker room, girls bully Romy. She has a lot of shame about her body, and the girls pick on her pretty relentlessly. A boy trips her while she’s running. Students steal her underwear and use them in a prank. The physical bullying is bad, but it’s the constant emotional bullying that’s truly awful.

Drug Content
Romy gets very drunk at a party and is later raped. High school seniors have a party by the lake, and everyone knows drinking and sex are a huge part of what goes on there. Adults turn a blind eye with the mentality that it’s a rite of passage and shouldn’t be stopped. (They’ll have a reality check on this later.)