I've been crossing a lot of books off my list so far this year, but as I've added up the numbers for my 2014 challenges it's occurred to me that I've been neglecting my 94-Book Challenge...all those unread books staring at me from my bookshelves. Between my library card and books that have been given to me in the last couple months as gifts, I've kind of forgotten about the 20 books I promised to read this year from my shelves. Whoops. I bring you: Twisted, by Laurie Halse Anderson.
I've mentioned before that I'm a huge fan of Anderson's. Between Speak, Wintergirls, and the Chains/Forge series, I think she's pretty much the stuff. So does one of my sisters, who actually gave me this book for a birthday several years ago. We were both really interested to see how she would handle yet another dark and deep plot...but this time inside the head of a BOY. As it turns out, she did a great job once again.
Tyler Miller has always been "Nerd Boy," small and pimply and avid fan of video games. He's been bullied, picked on, and teased for many years, mostly by Chip Milbury. After getting caught spray painting the school at the end of his junior year, though, he spends the summer performing community service and working for a landscaping company. He enters senior year several inches taller and impressively muscled, which immediately catches the attention of his life-long crush and twin sister of his nemesis Chip, Bethany Milbury. Everything seems to be looking up for Tyler...until all the right things start to go horribly wrong, and he finds himself caught in the middle of yet another battle with the law, his father, and the entire student body.
I don't think I can say that Twisted is quite on the same level as Speak or Wintergirls, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. I actually enjoyed it quite a lot, and cruised through it in less than 24 hours. Something that I've always loved Anderson for is her ability to get inside the mind of her protagonist, and truly reveal to her readers the deepest and ugliest details of their personal struggles. It was pretty interesting this time, having such an intimate front row seat inside the mind of a 17 year old boy. There was plenty that felt weird to read, but to be completely honest she really held back a lot. Anderson made conscious choices to be true to Tyler's thoughts and reactions without going too far or really saying all that much. I would say that some of the content would definitely push this book from Young Adult into Teen, but that's fairly typical of Anderson's more intense novels anyway.
Like I said, I read this book super fast. It's a quick, easy read despite the depth of most of the plot. Twisted touches on - and overtly discusses in some cases - some pretty difficult topics that more than a couple teenagers deal with. Bullying, popularity, social classes, relationships with parents, parents who spend all their time fighting with each other, teen drinking and partying and the extreme consequences that can follow, and even suicide are all discussed and studied in this novel. Anderson handles them all with grace and ease, but there's no real surprise there.
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