Twisted

by Laurie Halse Anderson

Tyler Miller is walking on the edge. He manages to maintain his balance by escaping into a video game for hours at a time, and by hanging with his best friend, Yoda. Tyler is doing penance for his Foul Deed of last spring, a major act of vandalism on the school building, by working tons of community service hours with the school's maintenance crew and a local landscaping company. His mother is a nice but unhappy lady. His sister is about to enter high school and is itching to break lose. His dad is an autocratic workaholic there's no pleasing. Tyler has been a scrawny, bullied victim for as long as he can remember. But, after a summer of physical labor, he's bulked up and shot up to 6'3". The impossible has happened. The school's hottest girl, and incidentally, his dad's boss's daughter, is showing interest in him. But what starts out to be the best thing that has ever happened to him in his life, ends up pushing Tyler off the edge into a dark place. Tyler is a character most guys could identify with and most girls could sympathize with. A great read.