Shine

By Lauren Myracle

  When her best guy friend falls victim to a vicious hate crime, sixteen-year-old Cat sets out to discover who in her small town did it. Richly atmospheric, this daring mystery mines the secrets of a tightly knit Southern community and examines the strength of will it takes to go against everyone you know in the name of justice.

Against a backdrop of poverty, clannishness, drugs, and intolerance, Myracle has crafted a harrowing coming-of-age tale couched in a deeply intelligent mystery. Smart, fearless, and compassionate, this is an unforgettable work from a beloved author.

Praise for Shine
Cat eventually uncovers the truth in a cliffhanging climax in which she confronts fear, discovers that love is stronger than hate and truly shines.’ Raw, realistic and compelling.”
Kirkus Reviews

The page-turning mystery and Cat’s inspiring trajectory of self-realization will draw readers in and give them plenty to ponder.”
The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Dramatic in both content and presentation."
Los Angeles Times

Myracle captures well the regret that many feel for things in their past about which they are ashamed. Cat’s reflections on these moments are spot-on.”
School Library Journal

AWARD:
WINNER: Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award for young adult fiction
YALSA 2014 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults

• Language: English
• Publisher: ABRAMS
• Release date: May 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781613121450

Lauren Myracle

Lauren Myracle has written many books for tweens and teens, including the bestselling Winnie Years series and the Flower Power series. She lives with her family in Colorado, and she thinks life is the most magical adventure of all. www.laurenmyracle.com

Book preview

PATRICK’S HOUSE WAS A GHOST. DUST COATED the windows, the petunias in the flower boxes bowed their heads, and spiderwebs clotted the eaves of the porch. Once I might have marveled at the webs—how delicate they were, how intricate—but today I saw ghastly silk ropes. Nooses for sawflies and katydids and anything guileless enough to be ensnared.

Movement drew my attention to the upper corner of the porch, where a large web swayed as if it were alive. I stepped closer, and a sour taste rose in my throat. A mourning cloak was trapped within a mass of threads. One wing was pinned to its body, but the other wing, dark brown rimmed with gold, fluttered feebly.

That golden wing made me think of Mama Sweetie, Patrick’s grandma. It made me think of her Bible, in particular. Its gilt-edged pages were as thin as tissue, and when I ruffled them, the gold shimmered. For Christmas one year, Patrick made Mama Sweetie a wooden stand for her Bible, and I knew if I pressed my face to one of the dirty windows, I’d see both the Bible and the bookstand displayed proudly in the front room.

Well, no, I didn’t know that, for the simple reason that just because things used to be a certain way didn’t mean they’d stay that way forever. Patrick could have stuck the Bible in a drawer, or given it away, or burned it. I couldn’t imagine him doing any of those things, but my thoughts on the matter meant nothing.

Sometimes I felt like my entire existence meant nothing.

I went through the motions, however. I showered and generally kept myself clean. I ate at mealtimes, I slept at night, and when it wasn’t summer, I went to school and read a lot of books. When it was summer, I still read a lot of books. But mainly, I moved through the world feeling invisible—and maybe I was. Maybe God was a giant eyeball in the hazy June sky, only there was a burn mark on His pupil in the exact spot of Black Creek, North Carolina, and that was why He didn’t see me.

If He didn’t see me, that meant He didn’t see Patrick, either. Was not seeing us better than seeing and not caring?

I backed away from the porch, my head buzzing. I felt blurry around my edges, like smoke, or the soft ssssss of a snuffed candle, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember why I’d come to Patrick’s house in the first place. Church started in half an hour, and it would take me almost as long to bike there. What had I been thinking?

The sun pressed down on me, making me sweat. Back when we were kids, Patrick and I escaped the summer heat by worming into the crawl space beneath his house, which was cool and private and, best of all, ours. It was our secret hideaway, and we spent countless hours down there with no one to keep tabs on us but blind and sluggish bugs. The sort of bugs that would eat us one day, we used to say for the shiver of it. Coffin bugs.

The entrance to the crawl space was a small access door made from a scrap of plywood painted yellow to match the siding. It was all of two feet tall and two feet wide, and it blended in with the house almost perfectly. The only thing that gave it away was the rusty hook-and-eye latch that kept it shut.

Patrick didn’t much like the dark, so we snuck down candles and matches, which would have given Mama Sweetie a fit if she’d found out. We spread a tarp on the moist soil, and we set up a milk crate for a table. On any given day, we’d toss snacks through the crawl space hole and then wiggle in after them, and once we were settled, we’d just gab away. That was the magic of it, that Patrick and I could just talk and talk.

The crawl space beneath Patrick’s house held happy memories for me, so that’s where I went when I left the front porch with its spiderwebs and dying butterflies. I walked around the house and found the access door, and the sight of it sent my blood pulsing.

I sat on the overgrown lawn beside the plywood door. Aunt Tildy would kill me if I got grass stains on my church clothes, but I didn’t care. I drew up my legs, tucked my skirt between my thighs, and hugged my shins. Tiny no-see-ums nipped at my ankles. Humidity pasted my hair to my neck.

The last time I was here at the house was three years ago. I was thirteen, and I was so happy I glowed. That’s what Mama Sweetie told me, anyway. She said I was lit from within, and I believed her, because I felt it and knew it to be true.

I haven’t known that feeling for a long time.

But that last day sure was a good one. Patrick and I had biked here after school, our feet kicking up dust when we hopped off in his dirt driveway. Mama Sweetie met us on the porch and hugged first Patrick and then me, saying, Well, hey there, Cat. Ain’t you as pretty as a picture. Fresh-squeezed lemonade waited on the small outside table. No garden spiders or mummy-wrapped bugs that day, because though Mama Sweetie wouldn’t kill a spider, she did use her broom to clear their webs away.

I dropped into one of the sagging fold-out chairs and accepted the glass she held out to me. It had a decal of the Tasmanian Devil on it, and it came from the Hardee’s in Toomsboro. Hardee’s was running a special offer: Buy six cinnamon buns and get a free cartoon character drinking glass. Buy a dozen and get not two free glasses, but three.

Mama Sweetie went for the three. She had no need for them, since she had scores of jelly jars that did the job fine. But she couldn’t resist Hardee’s cinnamon buns. She couldn’t resist anything sugary, and she spent half her food stamps on Coke and Twizzlers and fun-size Snickers. She bought cereal and milk for Patrick, and she made him eat tomatoes and squash and crowder peas from their garden, but their house was junk food central.

She was dead now. She died last year from her diabetes. I went to her funeral, but Patrick and I didn’t talk.

Anyway, that Tasmanian Devil. I didn’t know who he was until Mama Sweetie told me. I just liked how he looked, with his wild eyes and his fur fluffed out all crazy like a puppy after a good shake.

He’s on the show with that Bugs Bunny, Mama Sweetie explained. She worked at the church preschool, and years ago someone donated a used VCR and a cardboard box of old videos. Some were episodes of Sesame Street. Others were cartoons. Mama Sweetie played them for the kids at naptime if they’d been good.

I don’t know what he’s supposed to be, she went on. Just that they call him the Tasmanian Devil. She reached over and squeezed her grandson’s knee. You think there’s really such a creature, Patrick?

Let’s go to Tasmania and find out, Patrick suggested. We were in eighth grade, and already he was dreaming up ways to escape.

Mama Sweetie chuckled, patting Patrick’s knee now instead of squeezing it. Patrick’s hand went to hers, and their fingers interlocked.

"There is no such place as Tasmania, I pronounced, knowing no such thing. But good Lord, it sure did sound like a made-up name. I slipped off my flip-flops and poked Patrick with my toe. Even if there was, how would we get money to get there?"

We’d get jobs, Patrick said.

I rolled my eyes. Jobs weren’t easy to come by in Black Creek, not for grown-ups and especially not for kids.

Undaunted, Patrick said, Well, then we could invent something. Something good, and we’d save every penny and not spend it on junk, because God helps those who help themselves. Right, Mama Sweetie?

She ruffled his wheat-colored hair. One day, baby. Ain’t no need to rush. Her gaze was proud, but tinged with sadness, because she knew that eventually Patrick would leave. What she didn’t know—what none of us knew—was that she would go first.

Yeah, Patrick, stop rushing, I teased. I captured his foot with both of mine, hooking one behind his ankle and curving the other over the top of his beat-up sneaker. You’re staying with us forever and ever.

Mama Sweetie smiled, because she loved me, too. Not like she loved Patrick, but she didn’t love anyone like she loved Patrick. Still, she hugged me every time she saw me, and sometimes she planted loud, wet smooches on my cheeks, forcing me to complain for the sake of my dignity. Mama Sweetie! I’d cry. "You better not have left lipstick on my cheek."

Patrick saw through me. I knew from the way he’d grin. Some people were happiest when others were unhappy, but Patrick was the opposite. Plus, he knew my family as well as I knew Mama Sweetie. He knew my daddy was a drunk, and that my aunt Tildy was a fine and strong woman, but not one to dole out hugs and kisses.

Mama Sweetie nodded at my glass of lemonade, which I’d halfway drained. Well, that Tasmanian Devil is a rascal, whatever he is. Spins around like a tornado and gets into every little thing he can. She belly-laughed. But you wouldn’t know nothing about that, would you, Cat?

Naw, Patrick said, acting shocked. Cat wouldn’t recognize a whirling dervish if she saw one. Not if she was looking straight in a mirror, even.

I made a face at him, but I secretly took it as a compliment. Back then I was rascally. Why wouldn’t I be? The world was out there waiting to be explored—and not just waiting, but wanting to be explored. So why in heaven’s name shouldn’t I investigate every nook and cranny?

Anyway, my lemonade glass was better than his, which was decorated with a cartoon pig named Porky, and he was chubby and pink and wore a blue jacket and a red bowtie.

Maybe I am a whirling whatever-you-called-me, but that’s better than being Porky the Pig, I told him.

"Not the pig, Patrick said, annoyingly unruffled. Just Porky Pig, and I think you’re jealous ’cause I’ve got clothes on—he lifted his piggy glass to prove it—while you’re naked as a jaybird."

"Naked as a Tasmanian Devil, I said. And I am most definitely not jealous, because I’d sure rather be naked than wearing that getup. I giggled. Good Lord, Patrick. Can you imagine if you showed up at school in an outfit like that?"

Of course, Patrick said, quirking one eyebrow in a way that drove me nuts. I’d spent hours trying to train my muscles to do that. "I would look debonair."

"Ah, debonair," I repeated, savoring the syllables. Patrick was a few months older than me and had already turned fourteen. He was gangly like a colt, but even so, he was debonair.

Not that I noticed, usually. He was Patrick. Mama Sweetie said we were kindred spirits. We were different from the rest of the kids in Black Creek, but we were different together, which made it all right. Whenever someone said we were weird, we said, You just now figured that out?

We were always getting into stuff. Always asking questions, always wanting to learn everything there was to know. Patrick and I loved reading—we passed our library books back and forth since we were only allowed to check out six at a time—but we also loved being outside.

Sometimes we’d catch bugs and carry them to Mama Sweetie, despite being technically too old for bug hunting. But Mama Sweetie herself was a little kid when it came to bugs and nature and stuff, so we did it to please her. She taught us to be gentler than gentle, because it was terribly easy to tear a butterfly’s wing or pull a leg off a daddy longlegs, she warned us, even if we didn’t mean to. Life was precious. Life was fragile.

We’d present her with our treasures, and she’d draw our attention to things we might not have noticed on our own, like how a roly-poly curled up into a ball not to entertain us, but to protect itself from danger.

I’d seen roly-polies do their rolling-up trick and, sure, I knew they did it to guard themselves from harm. Who wanted to be poked by some dumb girl with a stick?

Mama Sweetie made me slow down and appreciate the finer points of the equation. She explained that since roly-polies were small and helpless, God evened things out by giving them the sense to curl up tight if something came along wanting to hurt them. There was a reason for everything, she said. God knew what He was doing, even if we were unable to understand.

Her wisdom applied to more than butterflies and roly-polies, because life was fragile. Things happened. Things changed. A girl full of light could get that light snuffed out, and when everything around her was dark, she could roll up into a ball and ignore the whole world, starting with her best friend.

But that was where Mama Sweetie’s vision hit a snag, because why? What possible reason could God have for letting people treat others like dirt? Just ’cause we can’t see the pattern doesn’t mean there ain’t one didn’t cut it, not when it came to flat-out cruelty.

My aunt Tildy blamed what happened to me on puberty, an explanation about as helpful as blaming it on the moon or drinking bad water or forgetting to throw salt over my shoulder to keep the devil at bay. But that was Aunt Tildy’s way. If there was ugliness to be dealt with, she dealt with it and moved on. If the ugliness left a scar, she brought out her whitewash and got to painting. When the damage was covered, she considered it gone, and it exasperated her to no end that I couldn’t forget the rot beneath the surface.

You can’t expect gumdrops to fall out of the sky just ’cause you want ’em to, she scolded me. No, ma’am. There’s gonna be good and there’s gonna be bad. That’s just the way of it.

But . . . I don’t want it to be like that, I whispered.

You think that matters, what you want? she said. Where’d you get that fool idea?

Though her words stung, she wasn’t trying to be cruel.

No one ever said the world’s an easy place, ’specially for a girl, she went on. "’Specially for a pretty girl, and that’s just the way of it, too. If you’re a pretty girl, you’re gonna get . . ."

She pressed her lips together. She couldn’t say it, not without scraping off a layer of fresh paint.

Some things ain’t worth dwelling on, she said crisply. Now help me get the laundry off the line before the rain comes on.

Today, there wasn’t a rain cloud in sight. Today, all I saw was an endless blue sky shimmering above the trees at the edge of Patrick’s yard. I pressed the back of my head against the house. My fingers found the grass, and at its roots, the cool soil. I would have been content to sit here for hours, but I needed to get up. I needed to bike on over to church, where Aunt Tildy would be waiting, saving me a seat in a pew and craning her neck to look for me.

Not yet, my body said, heavy with the desire for things to be like they once were.

But that was impossible.

I was sixteen now, no longer that girl full of light and life. No longer Patrick’s kindred spirit. If I was like anyone, it was my aunt Tildy with her dogged blindness, because eventually I had adopted her approach to dealing with all things ugly. Blindness, at the time, seemed like my best chance at survival.

So I’d stabbed needles into my eyes and pretended not to see certain things. Bad things. Only by turning my back on certain bad things, I ended up turning my back on my dearest friend, a betrayal I never intended.

Or so I told myself. That was a problem with lying to yourself. Sometimes you got too good at it.

A chill moved down me as I realized how stupid I’d been. By turning a blind eye to the badness, I allowed it to grow. And when it needed more to feed on—Oh Jesus—it spread to Patrick.

I should have seen it coming. I would have, if only I’d had my eyes open.

So open them, I commanded myself. I did, literally, and black spots swam across my vision, making me feel as dizzy as if I was swaying at the edge of a cliff. I’d never been good with heights. I blinked, and the sensation faded. I blinked again, and the trees bordering Patrick’s yard faded as well. I looked past them and squarely into Patrick’s pain.

I pictured him alone at the Come ‘n’ Go, my onetime best friend who didn’t care for the dark. It would have been pitch-black outside. No one would have been around for miles except pitiful, messed-up Ridings McAllister, who lived in a trailer on the side of the highway. But Ridings would have been asleep, and even if he wasn’t, he couldn’t save himself from danger, much less someone else. Patrick would have known that. He would have known exactly how helpless he was when whoever attacked him roared into the dirt pull-off outside the store.

Except most likely Patrick didn’t feel helpless, not at first. He wouldn’t have seen the wolf in redneck’s clothing.

I wasn’t there that night, but I could imagine how things played out. The shadowed woods surrounding the store. The flickering bulb by the single gas pump. The too-bright lighting within the store, illuminating Patrick as he went about his work.

Then what? A truck engine abruptly cut off? The slamming of doors layered over boisterous, drunk laughter? A male voice—one Patrick knew, if my suspicions were correct—calling, Patrick. Bro. Get your butt out here!

And Patrick would have shaken his head and grinned as he pushed through the store’s door. He wouldn’t have realized how wrong things were until he spotted the baseball bat bouncing against someone’s palm.

Then the fear would have kicked in. Too late, he would have grasped what he was up against: a predator, or a pack of predators, there to do what predators do.

Angrily, I curled my hand into a fist and slammed it backward against Patrick’s house. The pain helped, but not enough.

I leaned over, flipped the hook-and-eye latch on the door to the crawl space, and jerked it open. I squinted into the gaping hole. It took my eyes a moment to adjust, but then I made out the milk crates, the candles, the tufts of pink insulation drooping from the floor joists.

It was a postcard from our childhood, and it made me ache. Because Patrick wasn’t a child anymore, but he wasn’t yet a man. Because someone beat him up and jammed a gas nozzle down his throat. Because on top of everything he’d already lost, he was seventeen years old and more alone than I’d ever been, trapped in the deep sleep of a coma.

It enraged me.

But I’d lost out, too, and the realization fed my rage. I lost the strength to face the world head on. I lost my friends, I lost my brother, and I lost Patrick, which was like dying, since losing Patrick was nearly the same as losing myself. And what if Patrick never woke up? What if I’d lost him for good?

My fury sizzled and popped until I wasn’t just mad, but crazy mad, as if I’d struck a match and lit myself on fire. What happened to Patrick was wrong. What happened to me was wrong. Every single thing was wrong, and when that great blaze of wrongness reached my core, my heart swelled and roared and cast it back out, leaving behind a white-hot clarity like nothing I’d ever experienced.

What I knew was this: Once upon a time, everything changed. Now things had to change again. Someone needed to track down whoever went after Patrick, and that someone was me.

It had been a week since Patrick was attacked, and Sheriff Doyle hadn’t done squat. He claimed he was looking into every lead, but I felt certain he’d buried those leads instead. Slogging around in the muck of our godforsaken town would only bring Sheriff Doyle trouble, especially if I was right about what happened that night.

He would draw out the investigation a little longer for show, but eventually he’d pin the crime on drunk college boys from out of town. That was my guess. We might never find out who done it, he’d say, shaking his head. I can tell you this, though. Nobody from Black Creek woulda stooped so low.

But I’d seen things in the week since Patrick’s attack that didn’t add up, like my brother talking urgently to Beef, only to go dead silent when I approached. Like Bailee-Ann sitting by herself at the sandwich shop, her expression troubled as she chewed on a strand of her hair. Like cocky Tommy Lawson straddling his piss yellow motorcycle at the intersection of Main Street and Shields, thinking so hard on something that he didn’t notice the light turn green. Normally, he’d accelerate hard and fast, showing off the power of his BMW’s engine, but on that day, an old lady had to tap the horn of her Buick to rouse him from his trance.

I closed the crawl space door. I got to my feet and brushed myself off. My chest was tight, but I looked at the blue sky, clear and pale above the tree line, and said out loud, Fine, I’ll do it. I would speak for Patrick. I’d look straight into the ugliness and find out who hurt him, and when I did, I’d yell it from the mountaintop.

Do you hear that, God? I said. Do you see me now?

A moment passed. Sweat trickled down the base of my spine. Then, out of nowhere, a breeze lifted my hair and jangled Mama Sweetie’s wind chimes, which she’d made by hanging mismatched forks and spoons from the lid of a tin can.

It scared me, to tell the truth. It also fanned the flames of my rage.

I lifted my chin and said, Good.

IF YOU LIVED IN BLACK CREEK AND YOU WERE a good girl, like me, you put on your best skirt and blouse and went to church on Sunday mornings, and sometimes on Wednesday evenings, too. Daddy didn’t come, and neither did my brother—so much for Christian being a Christian—but they weren’t girls, so they could get away with it.

Last Sunday, Aunt Tildy let me stay home because I was such a wreck after hearing about Patrick. But this Sunday, I rode my bike from Patrick’s house to the Holiness Church of God in time for the moment of silence, which kicked off every service. That and the singing were the parts I liked best.

I’d always liked singing, and in the days of hanging out with Patrick and Mama Sweetie, the three of us would belt out songs for no reason. Mama Sweetie said you didn’t need a reason to sing. She said if everyone started off the day singing, just think how happy they’d be. We’d sing hymns from church and songs we’d learned at Vacation Bible School and

Reviews for Shine

[salsabrarian · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Cat's best friend Patrick is in a coma after a horrific beating that is being considered a hate crime (Patrick is gay). In her rural southern town where "there aren't all that many people to choose from when it comes to having friends," everyone tuts over the tragedy but no one seems to be looking too closely into who did it. Cat, feeling guilty over her estrangement from Patrick, decides to go digging. The close-knit atmosphere of a rural town is made real for the reader, but so is its cloistered ways. I didn't expect this to be as much of the mystery it turned out to be but it's also a story of redemption.

[justablondemoment · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very well written book. Caught me up from the beginning. The only thing for me that held it back from a 5 star rating was the ending. I felt it was rather rushed. The author could have added maybe a couple more chapters and slowed the pace with the ending being the same and it, to me, would have flowed much better. Other than that this was an awesome story and would recommend for both YA and adult.

[capriciousreader · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Shine is one of those books. One of those books I loved so much, so utterly to pieces, that I don't quite know where to begin in telling you all about it. I feel like I know this book so intimately, so personally, so completely and totally... yet I am tongue-tied.I will soldier on, because Lauren Myracle told me to. And because you have to read this book.Our main character is Cat and I have known a few Cats and I expect you have too. Pretty and, at one time, popular, something bad has happened to her and Cat slowly disappeared. She doesn't talk to anyone, her old friends, her family, even her best friend Patrick. She has almost completely cut herself off from everyone she knows to protect herself. Cat is in pain. She has no one to go to.And then Patrick gets hurt. Nearly killed.In a hate crime.Because he is gay.While Patrick lies in a coma, Cat seethes. She quickly recognizes that the area police are not going to do much of anything to find Patrick's attacker. They want the problem to just disappear. Cat will not allow that. She decides to investigate the attack herself. Her search will lead her to question friends, family and all she holds dear, in more ways that one. She will "look straight into the ugliness and find out who hurt him." Will she find the attacker? Will she bring Patrick justice?And more importantly, will she begin to heal herself?I invite you to find out.Shine is set in North Carolina, in my own "backyard" it felt like. I'm a Tarheel, born and bred (and I little ticked off that Firefox wants to spell check Tarheel!) and wow, did Myracle get it right. She knows North Carolina like I know North Carolina. It's not often I get to read a book set in my home state, in my part of the state, and took my own personal reading experience to another level. I felt so at home in this book. I've read books set in the more metropolitan areas of NC and, well, those are rare compared to the parts of NC Myracle is writing about here. Like all states, NC has been hit hard by poverty. Mill towns, tobacco towns, they are all closing down. People are moving away to the cities or just staying there, hoping something will come along. Drugs are rampant. So is violence. Intolerance is just a matter of course. Homophobia is (I'm shaking my head, it's so bad. And sad. And I don't know how to describe it except to say that).This is the first book I've read by Lauren Myracle but I know it won't be my last. Her writing is tight, honest; she doesn't pull punches with her characters. She's not afraid to push them. And she has a great way with dialogue. Just hearing these characters "talk" I would have known they were from the South. She's great with the little details (something I always appreciate), she paints a picture of a dying mountain town on the bring of combustion when something happens to one of their own, a something that many want to ignore. And she's dealing with issues that are so important. Issues that people are ignoring just as hard as the people in this book and we need to stop ignoring them. People should NOT be hurt or persecuted or made to feel inferior for who. they. love. The characters are so wonderfully written. I dare you not to adore Cat by the end of the book. Months later, I still find myself thinking about this book and to me, that is some of the highest praise I can bestow.

[dayehsensei · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a dark and compelling novel focusing on the unsolved mystery of a hate crime where a local gay teen, Patrick, was brutally beaten and left for dead. Set in rural North Carolina, "Shine" is told by Cat, the 16 year old friend of Patrick. Myracle's characters are excellently developed and the book has many surprising twists and turns. The subject matter is very adult-- explicit and disturbing at times. It may be too much for most "YA" readers to handle. Sometimes the text gets bogged down in speculation and detail-- and often emerges as a bit unbelievable-- but overall it is an excellent, important read.

[lauramoore_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've only read one other book by Lauren Myracle, and that was "kissing Kate" a few years ago, and it was just "OK" for me. I felt like this book was heading down the same dull drum path, but towards the middle of the book that all changed and I found that I didn't want to put this book down. This story is about a girl named Cat, who's best friend is victim of a vicious hate crime. The whole, small southern town seems to fall apart and Cat is the only one trying to find out who did this to her best friend. As secrets and people are exposed, more and more problems arise, and Cat isn't sure if she'll ever find out who put her best friend in critical condition at the hospital. The book started out a little slow for me, but towards the middle I didn't want to put it down, and I found myself on the edge of my seat with the twists and turns that occurred. All of which shocked me and I had no idea that the story was going in the direction that it went it. This book is def. one of my favorite books i've read so far this year, and I encourage everyone to pick this up. It's raw, emotional, and heart-breaking, Lauren Myracle blew me away.

[runa_17 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lauren Myracle is back with a dark mystery, revolving around a hate crime in a small, Southern town. It's really amazing to see the tremendous scope of writing Myracle is capable of--from lighthearted teen girl drama in the Internet Girls series, to the horror story in Bliss, to this new mystery. Personally, I think she should stick with the latter two, as there are so few writers out there capable of pulling off such captivating, deep writing so well. I've owned this book for a while, but it wasn't until the recent kerfuffle with the Wall Street Journal article that I decided to read the book. The article singled out Myracle's novel for its content, claiming that it is too dark for teen readers. While there are more drug references than you'll find in most other YA novels, I actually learned that meth use/abuse is pretty rampant in small Southern towns, which I never knew before. It becomes a key factor in the events of the story, so its inclusion in the story isn't just for the sake of giving the story an edge. (And the drug certainly isn't glorified, much the opposite.) This could easily turn into a whole rant at the wrongful accusations in the article, but that's a rant best saved for another day. **SPOILERS BELOW**The greatest thing about this novel is that unlike most mysteries, everything isn't clear-cut. Lauren Myracle truly imagines her characters complexly, showcasing all sides of the story rather than sticking with a black/white dichotomy, instead opting for the good, the bad, and the blurry. I do have a bit of an issue to take with the ending. The writing was spectacular, and the story was an important one to tell. I do think that it is important to note that not all hate crimes are perpetrated by the stereotypical latent homosexual struggling with self-hatred towards their own identity. Some legitimately are a result of complete ignorance. It's an important distinction to make. I also don't think Beef should have died. It served as the poignant ending it was intended to be, but I don't like the message being sent--conveniently killing off the most conflicted character rather than opting for battling ignorance/self-hatred with knowledge and love. He could have been sent to rehab instead, offering hope for those who are lost and struggling.Rating: 4/5

[highflyer_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When you live in a small town, everyone knows everything, except those things that you try really hard to hide and when they do find out, it rocks the entire town.This is the story of a hate crime in small town America, the kind of place where everyone knows everything, where drugs are slowly taking over the minds of their inhabitants and teenagers are trying to discover themselves.This is a great book. I was hoping for more indepth moments, getting to know characters a bit more, but I was happy with it. The conclusion is shocking. It's someone you never would have expected, and even though you're glad to find out what happened, you can't help but feel terrible too. You know they're just trying to find themselves when everyone around them tells them it's not acceptable.

[kmartin802_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a story about a girl who has to re-evaluate her life when her best friend, who is gay, is attacked and left for dead. Cat had withdrawn from all her friends because of a traumatic incident when she was 13. Now she has to get back into life and investigate to try to find out what happened to Patrick. The story takes place in a poor, dysfunctional Southern town with the attendant problems -- unemployment, abuse and drug use. Cat uncovers all kinds of secrets as she does her investigation and learns a lot about herself.

[lilibrarian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A hill town in the South is not an easy place to be a homosexual. Cat's friend Patrick does not hide what he is - and then he is found beaten into a coma with a gas nozzle stuck down his throat. Cat decides to find out who did this to her friend, and in the process finds out a lot about her town, the people in it, and what she really cares about.

[molliekay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book delves into the little known world of meth use in rural areas and the obvious homophobia among rural residents. Cat's friend Patrick is found brutally beaten with homosexual slurs written on him. Since no one is speaking to the authorities, Cat has taken it upon herself to find out what happened to him. Along the way we meet gritty and real characters who feel like authentic North Carolinians. This look at Patrick and his ordeals is surely going to win Myracle awards. A fantastic book that everyone should read.

[bethanne79 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Grabbed me from the start! The book opens with a news story about a hate crime against a gay teen in a small town in NC. Though I found the actions of some characters hard to read at times, following Cat as she tries to figure out what happen to her friend, as well as deal with her own past, was realistic. The plot of the book could easily be a story in our own newpaper today. Wonderfully written book that details the awful experiences life can bring & how your choices affect those around you.

[theepicrat · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Let me preface this review with a disclaimer: This is my first Lauren Myracle book, but if this is what I can expect from her, then I may just bring myself to reading her other works although I think I may pass on the Internet Girls series.Shine is a remarkable read that is sure to be timeless. I am in awe of Lauren Myracle for tackling such a emotionally-charged topic and doing so with great care, respect, and brutal honesty. I don't think I have read anything quite like it. At a time where the paranormal genre runs rampant with angels and unicorns and werewolves, I strongly urge everyone to take a breather and check out Shine. It is definitely worth your while!There are so many things to digest after reading Shine that I hardly know where to start. Cat makes for a perfect narrator who has to brace herself against the "small town = small minds" of Black Creek in order to find who had left her best friend for dead. Additionally, Cat has to reconcile with her own demons in the form of an older brother who disappointed her at the most critical moment of her life and a classmate who has wronged her in the most unforgivable way. As she digs deeper into the truth, she discovers that the small town has been infiltrated by meth - and among its users are some of her classmates.The ending of Shine will be sure to grip you in an unexpected manner, and it will force you to take a step back and see everyone involved in a new light. Even villains can have a heart. Even villains can redeem themselves. Then again, even villains can remain villains, no matter how you try hard to save them.Gritty, dark, disturbingly and sadly real, Shine comes at the right time in our lives where society is still hesitant about homosexuality. This is what happens, and this is what has to stop happening! I love that Shine addresses hate crime, but at the same time I am sad that it has to.Do yourselves a favor. Go and read Shine.Then spread the love. Stop the hate.

[readingwithmartinis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

WOW. That was all I could think to say after I finished Shine. WOW. This book completely blew me away. The description made me think the book would be good, but this book was good ON ANOTHER LEVEL.Myracle's writing was just amazing! Her style sucked me in and kidnapped my attention. I wanted to do nothing but finish this book. It was unputdownable! Myracle mixed the right amount of detail with the perfect protagonist, which made Shine fantastic.The plot of Shine was compelling. A teenage boy, Patrick, is the victim of a vicious hate crime. His best friend Cat sets out to find the culprit when it becomes obvious that the police are doing little-to-nothing to solve the crime. Given the social climate and attitude towards gays, I think the plot could not be more timely. In addition to the social commentary the plot provides, the plot was just darn good. I was totally caught up in the telling of the story, where the story was headed next, and deeply invested in the secrets that are revealed throughout the course of the novel.The characters were fantastically well developed. I wanted to hug Cat, the narrator, on numerous occasions in the book. I felt like I was reading about people I knew. That I wasn't some distant, remote reader removed from the people in a harrowing experience. I was right there with them and I loved them all. Even the characters I wanted to punch right in the head at some points, I loved.Shine was just stellar. It is without a doubt the best book I have read in a very long time. I highly, highly, highly recommend it.

[readingfanatic09 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've actually been struggling quite a bit to write this review--not because I didn't enjoy the book but because I liked it SO MUCH that I'm worried I won't be able to convey that love. This is so different from much of what I've read lately and it was an engrossing, thrilling, and much-needed change of pace. From the moment I read the opening newspaper article to when I read the final page, Lauren Myracle's Shine pulled me in. It was a truly spell-binding read--one that I put off for far to long. I know I won't be the first to say that some of Myracle's other popular novels don't hold a lot of appeal to me--not that they're not probably fantastic reads, just not my type. I guess it just goes to show Myracle's diversity as a writer because Shine was my "type" of book. From the start, I felt completely sucked into the atmosphere the author creates. The bigotry was so indicative of the small-mindedness that is often engendered in that setting. I could connect so well to the characters that I felt stifled right along with them - stuck in a world where my ideas didn't fit in. The main character, Cat, was incredibly relatedable in all her flaws. She's far from a perfect character, but I fell in love with her more and more every page. She became my best friend. I wanted to know on a personal level why she had separated herself from all her friends. I wanted to understand and I wanted to be there for her as she worked through years of pain and separation. When the description calls this a coming-of-age story, it's spot on. Watching Cat essentially grow up in the span of just over a week is harrowing and beautiful all at the same time--watching her open back up to people in her life and even the possibility of a new friend/love. All the characters in this novel were really well-done. They were so dynamic and did things that you didn't expect. It was truly refreshing. It made every turn of the page a new adventure because the characters could turn out to be or do something different than you expected at every turn. The mystery is, of course, the plot focus, but I really felt that the atmosphere and character were the driving force. They created the mystery and moved it along and created the twists that made the story unpredictable and kept me turning page after page. This is truly a fabulous read. I want nothing more than to own a finished copy of this one so I can read it over and over again. I bet your library has it--you should go borrow it.

[bookwormygirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cat has spent most of her life shutting people out from it. And that includes her childhood best friend Patrick. When Patrick is the victim of a terrible hate crime, Cat takes it upon herself to find out who did it.Although I was a bit suspicious about this story at first, I really took a liking to Cat. I was worried that I wasn't going to enjoy a story touching on so many sensitive subjects (i.e. hate crimes, racism, substance and sexual abuse, etc). Nonetheless from the first moment I heard Cat's voice I was captivated. Cat is the brightest thing in this story. She literally shines. I especially enjoyed how through Cat we are able to capture her small, southern town, its residents, their beliefs, etc. Each of the characters introduced in this story were multi-dimensional. They each had their own story lines and I liked how they slowly developed throughout the story.Ms. Myracle has a way with words. She masterfully captures the rural south - depicting a lot of its darker sides - the poverty and drug issues. The mystery revolving around Patrick's crime was superbly crafted. I was suspicious of everyone and could only get more and more frustrated as no one seemed to care enough to find out who committed the crime. I was on an emotional roller coaster as Cat not only tried to discover who hurt her friend but also as she came to terms with her past and moved forward from it. All in all, Shine packs a hard punch. It was an intense, emotional, tear inducing journey - but one that I am so glad I took. It realistically captures and explores issues like sexuality, rape, prejudice, violence and addiction. It was dark, it was raw, it was captivating. Read it!

[edgoldberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Shine takes place in the South. Patrick does not hide his sexual orientation and when he is found outside the Come 'n Go convenience store, beaten up and with a gasoline nozzle in his mouth, the theory is he is a victim of a hate crime. Cat, his one time best friend, decides she must find out who did this to Patrick and the book follows her on her quest. We meet Beef, Tommy, Dupree and Bailee-Ann, kids Cat's grown up with and known forever.As Cat searches for the perpetrator, the reader learns why she withdrew from all her friends. We find all the inner secrets of the people around her, adults and teens. Myracle paints a not so pretty picture of the south, of the backwoods towns, the poor economic conditions, the use of drugs as an escape mechanism, the intolerance of people because they are different.Rather than being a book about homosexuality, Shine is really a book about self discovery, confronting your past, learning who you are. The vehicle Myracle used was a hate crime, although it could easily have been a robbery, a death in the family, a divorce or a myriad of other life events. Lauren Myracle outshown herself (pun intended) in Shine. I you like reading well written books, books that make a point, books that hold your interest, Shine should fit the bill. Apparently not for the National Book Award judges, but for you and me plain folk, it'll do just fine.

[lucybrown_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Shine, a book marketed as an adolescent novel, but which is really only appropriate for readers in the upper age range of that bracket or very mature younger readers, takes on some difficult subjects with candor, sexually explicit scenes, and rather raw language. The novel is told by Cat, a rising senior in a poverty stricken area of the North Carolina mountains. Because of a sexual assault she suffered when she was thirteen she has become socially shut down, closing herself off from all of her former friends and even family. When her former best friend, Patrick, is the victim of a hate crime she once again begins to interact with her community if only to find out who is responsible for Patrick's brutal attack. Along the way she learns much about her family, friends and community and learns to open up again. Patrick, an openly gay teen boy, has faced prejudice and cruelty even from his friend throughout his high school years, and yet, was more or less accepted. His assault shocks the small community while the town's teens seem to be pulling in ranks. Everyone would rather believe that the attack was the work of an outsider. But Cat isn't convinced and begins to investigate.

The book depicts very candidly a atrophied mill town where the mill's closing has led to limited jobs and opportunities, which in turn have lead to rampant hopelessness. Joblessness and despair have lead many of the locals to meth running, cooking and usage. Alcoholism, drug addiction, poverty, ignorance, brutal childhoods, sexual assault, pedophilia and prejudice against homosexuals are all dealt with honestly, and for a young adult novel, with very strong language and descriptive situations. Many of these are also central to the mystery. I live in the area where the book is set, but in one of the affluent towns. The author's depictions is unfortunately very accurate. This is an area where you can go from being among some of the poorest people in North Carolina to being within a fifteen minute drive among some of the richest in the country. The meth problem and its causes are just as the author describes them for economically blighted areas of western North Carolina.

I give the book high marks for honesty and compassion. Also, the mystery is taut, the characters well developed, and the writing better than average for a teen novel. While I have said that the book is really most appropriate for the upper ages of the YA market, the only reason I read the book was because my daughter loved it so much that she begged me to read it. She is 13. I have no problem with her reading a book of this nature; I really feel it had much to offer. However, parents of young teens I would strongly caution to take a look at it if before allowing their child to read it if they are at all hesitant about what their teens read. Shine definitely pushes the boundaries for teen fiction.

I am not much a reader of teen fiction finding it for the most part to be stylistically lacking and shallow. If I where rating this as a teen novel I would give it 4 stars, but as an adult reading it as a novel more appropriate for adults I think it is a 3.

[bettymc_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

16-year old Cat's friend is attacked in a hate crime. She is determined to find out who is responsible for the attack.I live just over the Smoky Mountains from Cat's hillbilly redneck crossing. It is easy to imagine a small place like this -- with drugs galore, the chewing tobacco juice, the filthy trailer in the woods, and the gossipy women in the church kitchen. The place is not just small, but also small-minded. Cat retreated from all her friends after the eighth grade. I almost screamed at the book, "WHY?" but eventually we do find out the reason. She regrets having pushed everyone away; people welcome her back, although some keep their lips sealed during her investigation. Some characters are likable, others we despise, and one or two where I wanted to say, "Oh hush yo chatterin'!" It is also neat to notice the different ways the author uses the word "shine," without being obvious. For example, early on, someone said to Cat, "hoped he'd take a shine to you."While I followed Cat around her environs in order to investigate who attacked her friend, I thought to myself, "This is the best book I've read in ages."

[sch_94 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My Summary: Cat is a girl who is better than her circumstances. Born in a backwoods town in the middle of nowhere, Cat has been surrounded by poverty and hardship her entire life: her mother died when she was just two years old, and the only people left to care for her were her aunt and her alcoholic, out of work father.But Cat has someone else looking out for her as well: her friend Patrick, with whom she's been friends with since before either of them could remember. Patrick and Cat are kindled spirits in their tiny backwoods town, and they know they'll be best friends forever.After an incident when they're both 13, Cat pulls away from everyone she loves - including Patrick, who recently shocked the town by coming out. Three years later, Cat and Patrick are no longer friends; but when she finds out that Patrick has been the victim of a cruel hate crime, Cat knows it's her duty to investigate and bring Patrick's attacker to justice.My Thoughts: I loved it! I've never been a fan of southern stories, but this one had everything - cover-ups, mysteries, romance...Cat was a great character. We find out about Cat through her own stories - not what people say about her, and she's got a lot of heart. I found her thoughts to be really age-appropriate, and her reaction to what happened to her when she was younger was totally heartbreaking. I was cheering for Cat (and Patrick!) the entire time.The back-drop of the story is Black Creek, a town built around an abandoned paper mill. After a tornado wipes out the mill, the citizens of Black Creek are left to fend for themselves - as a result, the place had been overrun with drugs, alcohol, and poverty. Cat's family lives on her Aunt Tildy's measly pay-cheque, and they're struggling to make ends meet. Add to that the fact that Cat's dad is an alcoholic, and you really understand the hopelessness of the situation in Black Creek. Amid all the poverty and corruption, Cat is trying to uncover the truth about what happened to her friend Patrick. She's managed to convince herself of one thing: if she can figure out who did it, Patrick will wake up.But there are lies everywhere, and Cat has been living under a metaphorical rock for the past few years. She has no idea what has been going on in her town, instead choosing to live inside the worlds of her books. Cat is smart, though, and she uncovers some clues that will eventually lead her to Patrick's attacker.The question is this: does she want to know who in her small town was capable of such a brutal, senseless crime? Or is ignorance bliss?Final Thoughts: I really liked this one, and I definitely think it's worth checking out (it'll be released on May 1st, 2011). The writing was smooth, clear, and easy to follow, and I really liked the flashback style utilized by the author. Do yourselves a favour and put it on your To Be Read list!

[tatiana_g_29 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I only know Lauren Myracle's name in connection with her ttyl books. I haven't read that series, but it's pretty safe to say Shine is nothing like those stories about girls texting each other (or whatever they do).Shine is most and foremost a story about small-town bigotry. Cat's childhood gay friend Patrick is brutally assaulted - hit with a baseball bat, tied to a gas pump with a fuel nozzle stuffed in his mouth, with words Suck this, faggot written on his bare chest in blood. Small town of Black Creek, NC, is shaken by this crime, but no one seems to be interested much in solving it. Nobody that is, except Cat. She undertakes this quest because she thinks she owes it to Patrick for her earlier betrayal of him. Cat's amateur investigation not only results in solving the crime, but helps her overcome demons of her own - demons that forced her to end her friendship with Patrick and detach herself from the community years prior.I remember laughing and rolling my eyes at reviews praising Beautiful Creatures's portrayal of South. Not so here. Myracle writes Black Creek in a way that I believe - it's beautiful and it's ugly. You have a tightly knit community, but you also have judgment, prejudice, narrow-mindedness, church gossip, sweeping serious stuff under the rug, bowing to the richest, poverty and, of course, meth. Meth is a major player here. Which is probably not such a big surprise. Black Creek is a backward town.Shine is full of colorful and colorfully troubled characters. Each comes with a powerful and often heartbreaking story of her/his own. I will remember many of them, but one wackiest kid ever named Robert I will remember best.The mystery of Patrick's assault is one of the strongest I've read in YA fiction. It is sufficiently complex and the investigation itself is not absurd like that one performed by our homegirl Nora in Hush, Hush, for instance. The mystery did keep me guessing until the very end, even though I admit, I am a pretty dense mystery solver.Shine is not without its faults however. There are some rough spots in the story that could have been done better. For instance, the story line concerning Cat's "incident" that forced her to turn away from her friends, when elaborated on, turns out to be a little convoluted and underwhelming, especially when you read how exactly the event unfolded and how people involved reacted to it. I also thought that the romantic element in the novel is completely tacked on. Not only Cat's meeting with her love interest is too convenient and coincidental to be believed, but this person's presence is the story is unnecessary. I felt like Myracle put it in just to follow some unspoken rules of YA fiction which probably state that there has to be some romance, otherwise a teen book is a no-go.All in all, Shine is an emotional, intense, hard-to-put-down story that explores sexuality, violence, addiction and hate in a meaningful way. It is definitely worth checking out.

[richardderus · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rating: 2.5* of fiveThe Book Report: Cat's friend Patrick is a faggot. Everybody knows it in their little Southern town, and the usual crew of fucking redneck assholes make Patrick's life a hell of taunts and pranks. Cat does what she can, but she's a girl, and nobody helps her.Then one day, Patrick gets beat almost to death. Oh dear say the police the town faggot's been beat up tsk now who did that? Then they go eat donuts.Cat sets out to solve the hate crime. She has her ideas about who did it. She bases them on the past behaviors of all the tormentors, and she bikes around town collecting clues, and she gets her brother to beat some richly deserving asswipes up, and she falls in love with the only decent boy in the state.When the crime is solved, it's not a *huge* surprise to the experienced reader, but it's still satisfying. Myracle doesn't let one single person off the hook, but by the same token, she demonizes no one and ridicules no one.My Review: I have a hard time being as critical of this book as I feel honesty requires. I approve of its message, I like the whole set-up of a girl deciding that NO she WON'T sit down and stop rocking the boat, friendship means something in this world or we're well and truly lost.The design is beautiful, from jacket to chapter-open art, to text design. The book looks handsome and important. The message is good. Why then is Krampus the Kristmas Kobold pooping on it with a 2.5-star rating?They might be deployed in service of a plot that wins my hearty approval, but the elements of the story are stereotypical, wooden, and not freshly observed, described, or conceived. The dialogue is cutesy-folksy, or simply tin-eared, veering occasionally into wince-inducingly condescending. The positive portrayal of Jesus freakishness and regretting your sins equalling an obligation on the part of your victims to forgive you makes me boiling mad.It's just not a good book. It IS a good story. But, oh how mean it feels to say this, but here goes: But Myracle's either a lazy writer relying on a bag of tricks that's served others a little too often before they get their latest airing, tatty and stringy and musty, here, or else is just not a very good writer at all.

[kayceel_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cat, a sixteen-year-old girl living in a small town, has spent the last three years alone, having distanced herself from her family and her very best friend, Patrick. But when Patrick is severely beaten and left for dead outside the gas station where he works, Cat forces herself to start talking to her family and neighbors in order to solve the mystery of who attacked Patrick.This one was tough to read, though not as bad as I feared. Seeing this small town - seeming to rot from the inside out, thanks to unemployment and meth - through Cat's angry and scared lens is sobering. She's carrying around her own awful story (that takes awhile to surface), making it hard for her to talk to those she's been keeping away.Cat's a full, well-rounded character and she tells this story in a heart-breaking yet ultimately uplifting way. The ending is a bit overdone - the bad guy turns into an almost comical villain, and the way the crime is treated in the end is upsetting, but overall, a compelling mystery that illustrates that you never really know a person - even if you've known them your whole life.Recommended. **Notes from Evernote:

[katielder · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Oh my. Of the six books I read this spring break, I left this one for last because I am a sucker for a lovely, compelling cover. I read it all today, and I am still a little weepy and raw. The book begins with a facsimile of a newspaper article detailing an appalling hate crime against an apparently homosexual teenage boy in the small town of Black Creek, North Carolina, a town ravaged by boarded up factories and extreme poverty. The tiny town is also home to the narrator, Cat, a sixteen-year-old girl who had once been besties with the victim, but who has suffered her own tragedy and has cocooned herself inside a private world, one in which she continually "says no to life," to friends, and to the dignity of asking for help. When Patrick is assaulted and left for dead, however, she determines that her wallowing has lasted long enough, that she has been a dreadful friend to someone who was always good to her, and that she will solve the mystery of who committed this terrible crime. Although the authorities' official line is that the perpetrators were "outsiders" to Black Creek, Cat knows better and so she sets out to uncover the truth.In the process, she gets a lot more than she bargained for. She is forced to face friends she abandoned long ago, to acknowledge her brother's steadfastness (in which she had lost all faith), and to come to terms with her own victimization at the hands of someone she must now ask for help.The depictions of this part of the south are right on--the author should know, as this is "her neck of the woods." People in NC really do say "i want to jerk a knot in his tail" (just ask my in-laws) and the beauty (and the hypocrisy, and the gossipy-ness) of small, tightly-knit church communities is very fairly portrayed. In addition, the parents (and stand-ins), although plagued with their own difficulties, including the desperate inability to parent, are sympathetic anyway.The subject matter of this book--homosexuality, hate, drug addiction, poverty, and child sexual abuse (whew!)--is tough stuff, even for grown-up readers. But the delicacy with which Myracle handles these issues, by creating strong, compelling, and compassionate characters to handle them for her, and the loveliness of her prose, makes this novel sort of exquisite. Tragic and very painful, but tenderly rendered, nonetheless.Suggested audience: 15-16+, for very mature subject matter, but there is so much to learn here that I wouldn't take this book out of anyone's hands.

[jennzee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I picked up Shine in direct response to hearing via twitter just how much it deserved to be winning awards. The story centers on a small, poverty-stricken town where meth is a constant thought and threat. Coming from a small town with a drug problem (though not as small or problematic and the town painted by the author), this one hit close to my heart from the first page. Parts of America won't ever think about towns and situations like the one presented in this book. Sometimes decisions aren't as easy as what's wrong and what's right and friendships aren't as simple as there or not there. This book is a reminder of how precious the people we love are, and how much HOME becomes a part of us, for good and bad. I will be handing this book to as many young adult readers as I can.

[andreablythe · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an honest and moving story, and Cat is a captivating character. She starts out broken, cut-off from life and living in a self-imposed exile. It takes the shock of the brutal beating of her best friend Patrick to draw her out of her shell.One of the things I appreciate about this book is that Myracle allows layers. The line between good and evil is blurred, and each of the characters in this book has capacity for both. Every one in this book is human and flawed. Redemption is available to everyone; it merely takes the will and courage to reach for it and keep working for it.Elegant prose brings rich life to this small town in the South, which is desperate and lonely and sometimes very beautiful, much like this book.

[sleed_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book had an interesting plot, making it more of a mystery and the issues of homosexuality, hate crimes, and tolerance set in a rural redneck town, are definitely current concerns. Although some of the characters were well-developed, others were not and two-thirds through the book, it began to get a little unbelievable.

[ken1952 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The NBA snafu prompted me to read this novel about bullying and gay bashing. Interesting characters and a "detective procedure" style kept my interest. Not as great as I wanted it to be, but still worthwhile.

[lilcrickit · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I just finished reading this book some days ago and I find that it was really good. The main character Cat takes it upon herself to find out who committed a terrible hate crime against her friend Patrick. This story really is about truth, acceptance and as Cat gets closer to what really happened that night, she finds out who the people in her town really are. That sometimes there is danger in the truth and people will go to lengths to cover it up. This is an excellent book that will inspire, and it made me cry just a litte bit.

[christianr_899499 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cat lives in a small redneck town, where her close friend Patrick has just been beaten up and left for dead because of his homosexuality. More accurately, Patrick used to be a close friend, but Cat essentially dropped out of any kind of a social life two years previously after a friend of her brother's sexually assaulted her. But the attack on Patrick and her belief that the local authorities will do nothing to find his attacker has spurred her investigate it herself. What she learns challenges some of her long-held beliefs about her family, friends and others in her community. I expected this book to be more pointedly about homophobia, but it turned out that that was just one issue of many. It's about the hopelessness within her community, which lead many to destroy their lives with alcohol and drugs or, like Cat's father, to simply check out of life and do nothing but eat, watch TV and sleep. Or how the one family with money in the town can intimidate everyone else because they control the only jobs around. It's about how Cat chose to shut down herself after her own assault, giving power to her assaulter until she finally decides to face him. But it's also about challenging, and escaping, the messed up ways of your upbringing.

[tammyphillips · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This story sheds light on the harsh reality of what drug abuse, prejudices, and turning a blind eye to the truth can do. Set in a back-woods small town, Myracle weaves a story that involves a lot of ugliness with rays of light that shine through with truth and love. The best part about this story is the honesty of it. I believe Myracle acurately portrays broken people who are able to find redemption. She cuts no corners in this representation, so there is harsh language and some graphic behavior. But this is what seals the authenticity of the message.