Charles Benoit

This book is very well written, which only makes it that much harder to read because it makes all the horrible things that happen more believable. I was eagerly anticipating this book, but for some reason I wasn't prepared for it to be so brutal. Must be all those Disney happy endings - I still think everything will be okay in the end, even when the first page of the book tells you it won't. I wanted to stop it all from happening - and some characters I just wanted to pick up and shake until they stopped being jerks - most of them, actually. I only gave it two stars because I can't be really enthusiastic about something so cruel and sad, but it's a good book. Just be prepared for it to freak you out.… (more)

"I know your secret." In Cold Calls, Eric, Fatima, and Shelly all start getting calls from someone with a computer altered voice that blackmails each of them into bullying a particular student in each of their schools. The final event is to be dumping macaroni and cheese onto the head of each student during lunch on a particular Thursday. After running across each other in a weekend antibullying class, the three decide to find out who is making them ruin their lives and why.
This is a very good mystery, giving the reader insight into the personalities of each character, while sharing why each is being blackmailed. However, the characters are difficult to like because of what has happened in their pasts and how they each handled their situations.… (more)

Teen fiction; high school pressures for boys. This book propels you along nicely, giving glimpses of past indiscretions and trouble to come, and then when you get to the end you think, that's all? THAT is the whole reason for this whole plot? True, it may not be small potatoes to the main character, but it's pretty anticlimactic and dumb, especially since he's not even particularly that good of a friend to the girl in question. I can deal with the hero not being much of a hero, and I I liked the development of the characters with all the shifty-ness and shadiness, but it was a story I could easily have done without. Also, it makes me really sorry for this boy's mom--you can tell she's trying to help him, she can't help that she asks all the wrong questions and that he's going to ignore her anyway.… (more)