Review: You - Charles Benoit

Where I got it: Library
Rating: 3.5 stars 
Cover Rating: 5 stars (Amazingly awesome!)
Genre: Young Adult  
Publication Date: September 1, 2010
Publisher: Harperteen
Page Count: 223 p.

Kyle has made some bad choices. One bad choice being the company he keeps. By keeping said company he wound up at a public school instead a smarter school for the smarter student. He doesn't tell the girl he likes that he likes her and he punches everything in his path.  He doesn't have a whole lot going for him and adults are quick to point this out. We start at the end of his life and Kyle is forced to go back and figure out what exactly got him to this point. If he even knows this himself.

This is a hard book to review. Hard because while it was certainly interesting in some ways, in other ways it was maddeningly tedious. Charles Benoit captured perfectly the tedium of everyday teenage woes.  Kyle is a regular angry teen with regular angry teen problems. I didn't really feel bad for him because like he said "Your whole life is a chain of choices--your choices." and he made some crappy ones. So what? We all make some crappy choices. The beginning definitely had my attention, wanting to know how it all played out; how we would end up back at Kyle's dying moments. I also really enjoyed the little snide remarks that were wiggled in about how he would be dead soon. I also loved/hated the bizarre tenses in which this novel took place. Kyle referred to himself as Kyle, you and I. Which is interesting but also a bit bothersome, not because it was necessarily confusing but it just seemed pompous of him. Especially in the third-person tense. I really loved Zack, even if he was a complete jerk. He had this endearing quality about him that made me want to be his friend. Which I am sure is part of his whole charade so he can later completely tear you down. All in all I'm not sure what to make of this book. I read it, I didn't absolutely hate it. And that is all.

First Line:
"You're surprised at all the blood."

Favorite Line:
"Okay, that's not what he says, not even close to what he says, but that's what he'll tell the principal he said, and the principal will nod as if this fine young man wouldn't say anything harsher than 'golly', and only that if he were provoked."