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Send (2012) Patty Blount

This was the Kindle YA deal of the day yesterday, and after reading the blurb, didn’t think it was at all anything I was interested in reading.

But I decided to scroll down to see the reviews, and the excerpt from the first chapter caught my eye.

I was immediately sucked in.

So I bought it.

Then I read it all in one sitting.

Dan and his family have changed their names and moved to a new town. When he was thirteen, Dan (then Kenny) was accused of bullying a classmate in an incident that caused the other boy to commit suicide. After spending almost a year in juvenile detention, he came home, only to have his entire family driven out of their home by their neighbors, and the father of the boy he killed came after Kenny with a metal bat, in an attempt to kill him.

For several years, the family moved from town to town, but still the father of the boy who died would find them, and threaten and harass him.

So he’s starting his senior year of high school hoping to keep his head down and graduate.

Unfortunately, the first thing he sees when he pulls into the parking lot of the school is a skinny nerd being attacked by a huge jock.

And that’s what pulled me in.

This was a very very good story, and I highly recommend it. It isn’t a happy story, but it is a thought provoking one: what degree of responsibility do pre-teens have for their actions? Can you ever get past an action–even one done thoughtlessly and on the spur of the moment–that has caused another person to take their own life?

How does someone accept their guilt, but also accept the person they have become? (Answer? I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone knows.)
Rating: 9/10

Published by Sourcebooks Fire

 
 

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