Rating: Very Good
HarperTeen, 2010, $16.99
ISBN: 978-0-06-167379-5
Age/Grade Level: Younger teen
Life is not so straightforward in Chris Lynch's Hothouse. Russ and DJ, friends since boyhood, are bonded by the fact that both of their fathers are firefighters. Both fathers die together in what the town extols as heroism. Russ copes with a flood of memories and a tangled, twisted heap of smoldering emotion. Characters are all too real. Lynch knows the nuances of coping with tragedy and portrays the unfolding events with skill. The town that once heralded the boys' fathers as fallen heroes begins to learn trughts that knock the dead men off their pedestals. Recommended for the right reader, who has an interest in real, gritty, teenage boy bildungsroman.
Reviewer: Rebecca Porter, OCPL/Laguna Beach
