How to Steal a Car -- Pete Hautman
From How to Steal a Car:
I did not have this screwed-up home life that you would think would drive me to crime. My parents were nearly perfect. I don't mean perfect perfect, but compared to a lot of parents, like the ones who beat their kids and lock them in closets and smoke crack and stuff, my parents were practically ideal. For one thing, they were still married after twenty years, and they were completely nonviolent, and neither of them had ever been arrested as far as I know.
The summer before tenth grade, Kelleigh Monahan has to read a classic novel ("I'd never have picked Moby Dick if I'd known how long it was") and write a 500-word essay on "how to do something".
As this is the summer that she starts stealing cars—almost by accident—you can probably guess what her essay's about. (And, for that matter, the color of the last car she steals...)
Pluses:
- Perfectly captures the ennui of a mostly-sheltered teenager.
- Kelleigh's voice is totally believable: she bounces all over the place, occasionally requiring me to glance back to the previous page to be sure I hadn't missed a segue, but that just added to the verisimilitude.
- I suspect that some readers might complain that it's a bit... slight, but I rather think that it's less slight than subtle. It reads like it's just meandering along, but there's a lot going on under the surface: in Kelleigh's own self, in her family, and within her friendships.
Minuses:
- It's Pete Hautman. I don't know if it's possible for something he writes to have a minus.
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Book source: ILLed through my library.