You by Charles Benoit

A brutal and honest portrayal of an adolescent in trouble, this novel is a gripping and fast-paced ride.  The entire book is written in the second person, making the reader the protagonist, Kyle Chase.  And you are in serious trouble.  You know it right from the start because of the all of the blood and he won’t stop screaming.  Then the book flashes back to where it all started.  You find out about your crush on a girl in your class whom you are too scared to approach for fear of rejection.  You are used to being sent to the office regularly, and even though you hung out with friends at one point who were achievers, you now don’t try at all.  Your parents ignore you most of the time and you spend your free time hanging out with other boys who also dress all in black with hoodies.  You don’t have much in your life to be happy about.  But then a new kid comes to school.  He helps you with your bully problems and invites you to a party that is fairly cool.  So how in the world, did you get to that place?  The one with the blood and the screaming?  You will just have to read it to find out.

This book completely absorbed me, not letting me go until I turned the final page.  It is a compelling read, one filled with angst and threat.  There is so much here that is mundane, this is the life of a teen who has given up.  A teen like so many are who is distant from almost everyone, yet not a loner.  He is just Kyle, a screw-up and nothing special.  It is that day-to-day plotting that makes this book work so well.  There is dread around every activity, fear at every encounter.  Will this one be it?  How about this one? 

Benoit is skilled with the difficult second person, a device that brings the reader directly into being Kyle and feeling what he is feeling.  It allows the reader to bring who they are, who they know to populate the world, making it all the more tense.  Benoit also excels at pacing, slowing things down to intensify the book and reaching almost breakneck speed at the end.  The secondary characters are given short shrift here, partially because of the tense the book is written in.  I would have liked to have known more about them.  At the same time, I recognize that one of the reasons this book reads so well is that details do not slow it down.

Highly recommended, this is a book that will speak to many teens who will also be unable to put it down.  Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Reviewed from library copy.

• Also reviewed by:
  • One Librarian’s Book Reviews
  • Reading Rants