Cover Story: Eye, eye, eye!
Drinking Buddy: Teammate
MPAA Rating: R (language, violence)
Talky Talk: Giles Does Not Disappoint
Bonus Factors: Library, Mysterious Shop
Anti-Bonus Factor: Racism
Bromance Status: Onward
Cover Story: Eye, eye, eye!
The cover certainly caught my eye (pardon the pun), though I selected the book because I like the author. I’d pick it up without even reading the back cover for both reasons.
The Deal:
Cade Webster is a rising high school football star who has a real chance to go pro some day. His future should be bright. But the present, not so much. His nonsmoking father is dying of lung cancer. He has a scholarship to the wealthy ‘white’ high school, where he doesn’t fit in, while his neighbors in Jacobs Court accuse him of selling out. Gangs rule his neighborhood, and his friend Book has gotten in bad with them. And when Cade isn’t on the field, most people unfairly just see him as a big, Black thug.
Cade finds himself the unfair target of a police chase, and he ducks into a strange old pawn shop. When the clerk asks what he’s looking for, he mumbles that he wishes people wouldn’t be afraid around him. And he gets his wish. Not just that people won’t fear him, but they won’t fear anything while he’s around.
At first, it’s nice. His father starts traveling more, the cops now see him as a student athlete, and Book’s shy sister Gabby starts showing off her singing talents. But fear is a useful emotion. His father lets his eleven-year-old sister drive to another city, the opposing football players become violent animals on the field, and people start voicing things that one should really keep inside. Cade begins to investigate the history of the neighborhood, hoping to find a way to undo his inadvertent wish. And there’s a history there…a long, painful history.
Drinking Buddy: Teammate
Another YA character you can’t help but like. Football is going to take him far, but he can’t save his poor father. He wants to move his family and friends out of their dangerous neighborhood, but that might not be possible for ten years. His classmates have trouble seeing beyond his race, and his neighbors are snide about how he’s forgotten his roots. And now he might have sold his soul at the pawn shop.
MPAA Rating: R (language, violence)
I honestly couldn’t really tell you Cade’s sexuality; there is no romance in this book. He’s too concerned about saving his family and his life. And supernatural curses aside, how’s he supposed to save Book from the local gang leader, who has him marked for–at best–a serious ass beating?
Talky Talk: Giles Does Not Disappoint
It’s been years since I’ve read anything by this author, but he hasn’t lost his edge. I’ve read a lot of books that couldn’t combine real life problems with supernatural elements, but Giles pulls it off. As we’ve seen in a dozen Twilight Zone episodes, eternity is a long time, and when you’re a teenager, it’s not always easy to see the big picture.
Bonus Factor: Library
Like a lot of smart kids, Cade’s friend Book didn’t like school and dropped out. But he’s putting that brain to work with his schemes, some of which are even legal. It doesn’t matter, though, since his mother has kicked him out and the local gang leader is looking for him. Cade wants to help, but maybe Book can figure his way out of this, in the one safe spot in neighborhood: the library.
Bonus Factor: Mysterious Shop
I can’t count the number of old junk stores I explored in college, looking for an unholy book or artifact that could endanger humanity. Cade has found such a place, and realizes it’s owned by the creepy old landlord of half the neighborhood’s buildings, who’s been causing misery in the area for a long time. Like, over a hundred years.
Anti-Bonus Factor: Racism
So Cade knows the score. Despite social change, a lot of people can’t see past his skin color. And when he tries to help an older white woman from stumbling on the bus, she loudly accuses him of trying to steal her bag. The situation gets very mob-like very quickly, and he has to hide…in the pawn shop.
And once people stop being afraid…people are now using their outside voice to express opinions they originally kept in their brains. It hurts Cade that his classmates, his teammates, and even his teachers only kept their racism inside out of fear.
Bromance Status: Onward
This author has yet to disappoint. While the cliffhanger ending didn’t seem to be a gateway to a sequel, I wouldn’t scoff at the idea.
Literary Matchmaking
Endangered, by the same author, is another suspenseful novel.
The Evil Librarian series by Michelle Knudsen has a similar vibe.
As does Tori Bovalino’s The Devil Makes Three.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received a free ARC from the publisher, though no money or unholy power.
