Can you ever recover from witnessing a classmate shoot another classmate in the face point blank? Unfortunately, these are tragedies that happen almost every day and after experiencing our own shooting on campus almost three years ago, I can say that I think people can move on, but I don’t know if we ever rehabilitate or recover.
Rem has experienced this situation of being present when Franklin shoots one of his best friends, Pete. The first sentence sets it up perfectly. “Almost a year after Franklin Kettle shot my friend Pete Lund through the head, a squad of cops took Franklin to my mom’s lab so she could put a hole in his head and slide a small electronic capsule inside” (p. 1).
Rem’s mother is a renowned neuroscientist interested in experimenting on sociopaths’ brains to determine if one alters their brain matter, can they become normal. One major stumbling block is finding a willing sociopath, until now, and Franklin’s grandmother has consented.
While much of this book is about Franklin and his erratic behavior, most of it is about Rem and his surviving friends. For Rem, his therapy is found in his secret rendezvous with hunky Tor and through his drawings in his beloved tattoo atlas.
Nothing in this book is what is appears and other students are hurt. There is mystery, suspicion, lying, manipulation, secrets and readers will not know who to trust. This is upper YA at its best and as disturbing as this book is, I could not put it down.