Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson

Laurie Halse Anderson is one of my favorite YA authors.  I've read nearly everything she has written.  I never read Twisted because it is reviewed as for grades 9 and up.  I tried to find a review that placed it in 8th grade and never could.  So knowing the censor dragon lurks everywhere, I decided against its purchase for  PTMS.  Imagine my surprise when I used Overdrive to browse YA books, I found Twisted available immediately.  I quickly downloaded it and read it in two days.  Here's "my booktalk".

Twisted is a book about school....you can tell by the pencil right?  But how can a school be twisted?  Or how does school twist you?  Well one way is by your friends or lack of friends.  Both can twist you in unexpected ways.  What can cause great twisting is when a queen bee takes notice of a boy who "went bad" and spray painted the school last May.  This "bad boy" was expressing his total dismay of a school population who taunted and teased him and his best friend.

Now Tyler Miller is finding himself in the inner circle of the crowd who dismissed him.  Well at least he is in the circle in Bethany's eyes....until she becomes drunk at a party and he refuses her passes.  Does she consider him noble for not ’taking advantage'?  No, instead she makes fun of his "lack of ability" and other taunts. Then her drunken nude picture appears on the Internet, Tyler is accused of posting the picture and once again the twisted world called school "protects him" by removing him from all his classes and putting him in solitary confinement until the police have finished their investigation.

Laurie Halse Anderson shows that she can write from a boys viewpoint about our Twisted World where a person doing the "right" thing is treated as the criminal to such a extent that the pain of rejection leads to acts that should not occur in our world.

I wish this book could be in the middle school.  It does not have more explicit anything than Speak or Wintergirls.  Our boys are missing out on a good read.  Go to overdrive and check it out!