Breaking the Fall (Puffin Teenage Fiction) - Softcover

Michael Cadnum

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140381724 ISBN 13: 9780140381726

Publisher: Puffin Books, 1997

Synopsis

Desperately trying to hold together his disintegrating life, Stanley allows his friend Jared to draw him into a dangerous game of fear

About this title

About the Author

Michael Cadnum is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books for adults and young adults, including the contemporary novels Rundown, Heat, and Edge (all Viking) and the historical novel In a Dark Wood (Orchard/Puffin). Michael Cadnum lives in Albany, California.

copyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Grade 9-12-- Stanley is a high-school student struggling to cope with estranged parents who inhabit the same house without ever communi cating with one another or with him. Stan is caught in the middle of their dissolving mar riage, as well as being drawn between the op posite poles represented by Sky, a potential girlfriend and a link to normalcy, and by Jared, a dangerous and unstable friend with a fasci nation for death and a penchant for self-de struction. For Sky, he attempts to return to the sports that were once important to him, hum bly befriends her Samoan family, and con fronts anything that threatens her. For Jared, he joins in a dangerous game of breaking and entering occupied houses for the thrill of fear that Jared needs to feel alive and, for a time, Stanley really can't tell which of these worlds will claim him first, or forever. This is a cryptic novel that offers a rapid series of scenes and descriptions and leaves readers to draw their own assessments of characters, conclusions, and moral judgments. The situations and events are harsh and often unpleasant, and there isn't much of the standard ``happily ever after'' variety to balance them, although the story ends on what appears to be a positive note. Some readers may be disturbed by this story, although mature teens may find it a more realistic reflection of a troubled world, in the manner of Robert Cormier, S. E. Hinton, and many adult writers. --Susan L. Rogers, Chestnut Hill Academy, PA
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140381724
• ISBN 13: 9780140381726
• Binding: Paperback