Sunday, October 5, 2014

Complicit by Stephanie Kuehn


Genre:  YA Contemporary Thriller

Description (taken from Stephanie Kuehn's website):
Two years ago, fifteen-year-old Jamie Henry breathed a sigh relief when a judge sentenced his older sister to juvenile detention for burning down their neighbor’s fancy horse barn. The whole town did. Because Crazy Cate Henry used to be a nice girl. Until she did a lot of bad things. Like drinking. And stealing. And lying. Like playing weird mind games in the woods with other children. Like making sure she always got her way. Or else.

But today Cate got out. And now she’s coming back for Jamie.

Because more than anything, Cate Henry needs her little brother to finally know the truth about their past. A truth she’s kept hidden for years. A truth she’s not supposed to tell.

Trust nothing and no one as you race toward the explosive conclusion of this gripping psychological thriller from the William C. Morris Award–winning author of Charm & Strange.

Jamie is your average teenager trying to survive high school and keep his parents happy.  Only, he has a terrible past that he can't remember, but his sister remembers it.  And while his adoptive parents are perfectly okay at letting the past be forgotten, Cate refuses to let him forget it.  But can Jamie handle the past?

Cate has barely gotten out of juvenile detention, and now she's hell-bent on making those responsible pay.  But Jamie has always been there.  He's always been along for the ride and putting up with Cate.  So it's confusing that she's decided to come after him.  Maybe it's because of sibling jealousy or maybe she's just looking for an ear to listen to her.  But Jamie's not sure he wants anything to do with her.  After all, she's just trouble trying to make more trouble.

So, I can't really go into this novel too much without ruining it.  However, I will say one word: terrible.  That's how I felt about the novel, the writing, and the epic conclusion.  I felt like the writing was so choppy, and I couldn't handle the two-paged chapters well.  So of course, I wasn't enjoying this too much.  And while I felt like the whole plot premise was glaringly obvious, I felt like the terrible ending had quite a few redeeming qualities to it.  But it just wasn't one that made me think it was time well-spent reading.

With all the open-ended questions each chapter leaves, I'm sure there's going to be plenty of others who love this chase.  I just feel like I would have done better if I could ride through this chase with a Hummer instead of a tricycle (I'm sure my imagery makes no sense)...

1 comment:

  1. Ugh, shame. I had high expectations for this one! But I can't stand ones that don't make much sense in a bad way. :(

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...