As a digital subscriber, you’ll receive unlimited access to Horn Book web exclusives and extensive archives, as well as access to our highly searchable Guide/Reviews Database.
To access other site content, visit The Horn Book homepage.
To continue you need an active subscription to hbook.com.
Subscribe now to gain immediate access to everything hbook.com has to offer, as well as our highly searchable Guide/Reviews Database, which contains tens of thousands of short, critical reviews of books published in the United States for young people.
Thank you for registering. To have the latest stories delivered to your inbox, select as many free newsletters as you like below.
No thanks. Return to article
152 pp.
| Candlewick
| February, 2012
|
TradeISBN 978-0-7636-5337-8$16.99
(2)
YA
Bounce--rich, bright, cynical, and manipulative--masterminds the kidnapping of a three-year-old girl, assisted by "chuckleheads" Wiggins and Orange. The tension of this unsettling novel, related in alternating voices, resides in whether or not Wiggins will act on his growing unease at what the trio is doing. Rapp creates distinct voices for the four characters, and the tale has a frenzied power.
Reviewer: Dean Schneider
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
January, 2012
244 pp.
| Candlewick
| May, 2009
|
TradeISBN 978-0-7636-3031-7$16.99
(2)
YA
Traveling to visit his brother who's dying of cancer, fourteen-year-old Jamie writes letters. These are interspersed with earlier missives written to Jamie, and gradually his troubled history emerges: time on the streets, punctuated by drugs, sex, and crime. With his quirky idiomatic expressions, striking word choices, and stream-of-consciousness prose, nobody writes about disposable, marginalized youth quite like Adam Rapp.
Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
May, 2009
310 pp.
| Candlewick
| October, 2004
|
TradeISBN 0-7636-1818-7$16.99
(2)
YA
Seventeen-year-old Steve Nugent's therapist-ordered autobiography describes his stay in a home for suicidal teens and records the events that led to his committal--his mother's death from cancer, his brother's subsequent suicide, his dad's depression, and his own out-of-control behavior. Brutality mingles with moments of beauty in this horrific catalog of wounds and loss, related in Steve's poetic language.
Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
January, 2005
179 pp.
| Candlewick
| March, 2003
|
TradeISBN 0-7636-1874-8$$15.99
(3)
YA
Sordid doesn't begin to describe this novel of four runaway outcasts. There's charismatic (and pyromaniacal) Boobie, who has taken his baby brother to sell. Along for the ride are young prostitute and addict Curl and throwaway boy Custis. Custis's narration of their rural travels is a stream of obscenity, but his vulnerability is also in evidence. The novel's happy ending (for Custis, anyway) isn't exactly earned, but it certainly is welcome.
255 pp.
| Front
| April, 2002
|
TradeISBN 1-886910-72-3$$16.95
(2)
YA
In this story of a sexually abused boy, eleven-year-old Blacky's present tense narrative skips events he isn't yet able to process. Despite the gaps, the reader becomes intimately familiar with his neglected home. Rapp's portrayal of the abused child is sensitive, sympathetic, and honest. The reader suffers with Blacky his cruel torment at school and shares his brief joy in connecting with another outcast.
Reviewer: Lauren Adams
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
September, 2002
247 pp.
| Front
| October, 1999
|
TradeISBN 1-886910-42-1$$16.95
(4)
YA
Eleven-year-old Whensday exists in a nightmarish post-apocalyptic land where virtually everyone she knows soon meets a violent death. Luck seems to play a larger part in her survival than does her strong inner spirit, and the unremitting brutality leaves little room for readers to notice her strength. However, the book is compelling despite the unrelenting cruelty, and Whensday's narration is gripping.