Children's Literature
- Fran Hawk
Dru's father was an alcoholic who died when he drove off a bridge. Dru's brother is incarcerated. At age sixteen, Dru was solely responsible for his sick mother and the running of the household. As a good student and a wrestling champion, he had an excellent chance of leaving Marshall, Nebraska for a better life. Gina's mother had accidentally let her baby brother drown and had left the family. Gina's father had remarried, and was hoping to be elected mayor. Dru and Gina, from almost opposite ends of the social spectrum, are deeply in love. Curtis Alderson is a multimillionaire who runs the town, including the Sheriff's office. When Alderson's reprobate son, Beau, rapes Gina, the action revs up. Dru, crazy with rage, fights Beau. Beau is getting the upper hand when Gina steps in and kills him with a tire iron. Dru and Gina run. The novel is roughly a pornographic version of "Romeo and Juliet." The sex is graphic, the language is un-expurgated. In addition to rape, there is murder, drug use, suicide, and thoroughly depraved characters that thrive. The end is grisly, horrific, romantic or spiritual-depending on your point of view. This dark book is not for the faint hearted or squeamish, and not for anyone under the age of fifteen. Reviewer: Fran Hawk
School Library Journal
Gr 10 Up—Dru Weiben, 16, and Gina King, 17, are in love as evidenced by their passionate sex life, described in raw detail from the first page. Dru comes from a troubled family; his brother is in jail and his drunk father drove off a bridge to his death. But Dru is the star of the wrestling team, and he is determined to be better than the assumptions people make about him. Gina also comes from a struggling family. The Aldersons, the local power family, own half the county in Nebraska and apparently half the law-enforcement officers as well. When the self-indulgent only son of this family rapes Gina and, in a tragic turn of events, ends up dead, the two young lovers go on the run. The corruption in the police force drives readers to believe that there is little hope for them, and eventually they are proven right in this modern tale with a Shakespearean ending. There are some good characters, and the sometimes-brutal passages will attract some readers, but a better choice might be Simone Elkeles's Perfect Chemistry (Walker, 2009).—Jake Pettit, Thompson Valley High School, Loveland, CO
