Young Adult Literature |
Suspense |
Young Adult Fiction |
Summary
Summary
Printz Honor-winning author Adam Rapp spins a raw, gripping, and ultimately redemptive story about three disaffected teens and a kidnapped child.
Three teenagers - a sharp, well-to-do girl named Bounce and two struggling boys named Wiggins and Orange - are holding a four-yearold girl hostage in Orange's basement. The little girl answers to "the Frog" and seems content to play a video game about wolves all day long, a game that parallels the reality around her. As the stakes grow higher and the guilt and tension mount, Wiggins cracks and finally brings Frog to a trusted adult. Not for the faint of heart, Adam Rapp's powerful, mesmerizing
narrative ventures deep into psychological territory that few dare to visit.
Author Notes
Adam Rapp is the acclaimed author of Punkzilla, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book; Under the Wolf, Under the Dog, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist and winner of the Schneider Family Book Award; and 33 Snowfish, an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. He is also an accomplished playwright, a writer for Season Three of the HBO series In Treatment, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama in 2007. Adam Rapp lives in New York City.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 10 Up-Adam Rapp's disturbing tale (Candlewick, 2012) reveals the appalling exploits of a trio of middle school sociopaths who, among other depraved escapades, kidnap a three-year-old and keep her in a basement while simultaneously hanging posters and soliciting spare change from others who want to help find the child. Bounce, the ring leader, is bright, privileged, neglected by her parents, and totally amoral. She has an especially heinous plan for the money they collect. Amy Rubinate convincingly voices Bounce with the right amount of belligerence and cockiness. She also narrates the part of the young kidnap victim, dubbed "The Frog," using a sweet and lyrical pitch. Nick Podehl provides an amazing portrayal of the young teen boys, Orange and Wiggins, who have pitiful home lives and are influenced by the drugs and money Bounce provides. The boys' voices are distinct, complete with crude profanity and cultural mispronunciations. Hauntingly ominous music provides the perfect backdrop to this heart-pounding, unforgettable tale of disenfranchised teens.-Patricia McClune, Conestoga Valley High School, Lancaster, PA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Writing in the visceral narrative style readers have come to expect from him, Rapp (Punkzilla) plunges readers into the minds of three emotionally disturbed teens and the four-year-old girl they have kidnapped and keep chained up in a basement. The driving force behind the trio's actions is intelligent and cold-blooded 14-year-old Bounce, who tests the limits of her power by manipulating insecure Wiggins and violent Orange into being her pawns, "my perfect little monkey boys," feeding them prescription drugs, toying with them sexually, and making them fight each other. The three collect donations for the girl's disappearance with the aim of buying a Glock to kill an elderly poet. Only Wiggins's struggling conscience stands in the way of Bounce's bloodlust. Bigotry, neglect, violence, and desensitization to all of the above intermingle in a story that's particularly devoid of hope, even for Rapp. Even four-year-old Frog seems beyond salvation, as she obsessively plays a violent video game that isn't any more disturbing than what's going on in the rest of the book. It's an unrelentingly bleak indictment of a world far gone, where the best-perhaps only-option is to abandon society altogether. Ages 14-up. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
They took her from the dance studio near the Home Depot, a three-year-old girl coming from ballerina class dressed "like a toy on a birthday cake." Wiggins, Bounce, and Orange chain her to a hot-water pipe in the basement and make posters asking for help in finding the little girl they've abducted. The scam works, and money starts coming in. Bounce -- rich, bright, cynical, and manipulative -- masterminds the crime with her "seventh-grade loner chuckleheads." It's an unsettling tale with a Clockwork Orange edge to it, and only Wiggins has a glimmer of a soul, "so deep inside that the doctors can't find it with all their machines and microcameras." The tension of the novel, related in alternating voices, resides in whether or not Wiggins will act on his growing unease at what the trio is doing. Rapp creates distinct voices for the four characters, and, as off-putting as the subject is, the tale has a frenzied power. In a world where parents do leave their children to the wolves, and where television, the mall, video games, and drugs are more seductive than anything school has to offer, such deeds don't seem so unthinkable. Rapp captures a world that might just be right down the street. dean schneider From HORN BOOK, Copyright The Horn Book, used with permission.
Kirkus Review
Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In the wake of such modern masterpieces as 33 Snowfish (2003) and the Printz Honor-winning Punkzilla (2009), readers should know the kind of grueling, soulful, gut-punching work to expect from Rapp. Still, be warned: this is his most hellish and hellishly readable vision yet. Bounce, a rich 14-year-old genius (and one of the most frightening characters you'll find in YA lit), has two 13-year-old lowlife friends, Orange and Wiggins (her two lost wildebeests ), in her thrall, thanks to her towering IQ, brash sex appeal, and endless supply of OxyContin. For two months they've been keeping a three-year-old girl locked in Orange's basement, feeding her a selection of cold cereal and stolen pharmaceuticals, and meanwhile canvassing the neighborhood to solicit donations, ostensibly to help find the girl but really so that they can buy a gun to shoot a local poet who annoyed Bounce during a school visit. The point of view jumps between the four characters, though it is Wiggins, who suffers sporadic drug-addled attacks of consciousness, who becomes the novel's closest thing to a moral center. Naysayers could gripe that Rapp keeps plumbing the same territory. But he's also creating, book by book, a vital library of the furies and hopes of a forgotten underclass, and always in their own confused, desperate, and endlessly resourceful voices. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Rapp's novels don't typically spawn massive tours or fancy websites, but nonetheless few YA authors are so consistently lauded. Multiple copies may be required.--Kraus, Daniel Copyright 2010 Booklist