Teen Fiction - Choices & Transitions, Teen Fiction - Entertainment & Arts, Teen Fiction - Peoples & Cultures
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Overview
Cody and his friends call it street cleaning—four of them beating up on one guy they don't like the looks of. Cody partakes in the action, even though he'd rather be taking out his aggression on his drum kit. A drummer without a band is one lost dude, so Cody soon hooks up with Kelsey and guitar-playing Alex. Cody manages to keep his destructive tendencies under wraps long enough for the band to start to have a following. But before success comes knocking, Cody's old friends show up with a score to settle. Cody needs to decide whether the time is right to come clean about his past and face the consequences.Editorials
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"[Choyce] addresses serious issues with teen readers while 'keeping it real' with character development and dialogue...Gone Bad joins the other 35 books in the Lorimer SideStreets Series which bring hard-hitting issues to teen readers in effective but accessible prose...I will certainly be recommending these titles to students looking for easy reads with an edge."The Horn Book Guide
"The story's anti-bullying message is well integrated into the plot, and Cody's gritty past is honestly portrayed."Children's Literature -
Cody is part of a group that "cleans" up the riffraff in Halifax. However, their idea of "cleaning" and "riffraff" are a bit different from the rest of the town's. For example, when hanging around the library late at night Cody and his three friends beat up Jeffrey because Jeffrey had the gall to try to sing along to the group's crazy impromptu music. As a result, Jeffrey ends up in the hospital. Enter Kelsey, a girl who not only has Cody's heart twisted around her finger; she is also a protesting song writer with an incomplete band. She allows Cody to be the band drummer if he quits being a town thug. Cody isn't sure if he can change, if he would want to, or if his friends will even let him. Even though this is a book about bullying and violence, it isn't a book told from the perspective of the victim. Instead this book gets inside Cody's head as he tries to figure out not only what he should do, but what he wants to do. It is realistic in that at the end, Cody is not the complete opposite of himself. Although he does make some good progress, he still is in a position where he still needs to figure out who he is and what he wants in life. This is another good book that is a short read with edgy teen appeal yet a low reading level. Reviewer: Joella PetersonBook Details
Published
September 1, 2011
Publisher
Lorimer, James & Company, Limited
Pages
160
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9781552777091