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Starred review from September 6, 2010
A sense of doom pervades this gripping YA debut from adult mystery writer Benoit, made all the more devastating by an empathetic main character. Second-person omniscient narration invites readers into Kyle's grim story: "Welcome to the official start of tenth grade. Welcome to the last year of your life." Previous bad choices have landed him at Midlands High, and as one of the school's burnout "Hoodies" (so-named for their requisite hooded sweatshirts), Kyle finds his world increasingly circumscribed. "Every day you get up, go to school, fake your way through your classes, come home, get hounded about your homework... and the next day you get to do it all over again." Bright but unmotivated, Kyle is easily swept into newcomer Zach's sinister orbit, as the wealthy and psychologically brutal Zach defends, charms, and then seeks to destroy him. Kyle's internal thought processes (frequent lists, parental nagging, one-sided conversations) convey a conflicting swirl of emotions—rage, distrust, betrayal, empathy, and love—while an overarching defeatism prevents him from acting on constructive impulses. Disturbing content blends with skillful, fast-paced writing, adding a thriller spin to the novel's vicious realism. Ages 12–up.

January 1, 2011
Tenth-grader Kyle, addressed as "you" throughout, is always on the verge of flunking out. School becomes a bit more interesting with the arrival of Zack, kicked out of private school, who helps Kyle when the jocks decide he needs a lesson. This portrait of a high school hoodie captures the emotions, both torpid and turbulent, of adolescence in brief, charged paragraphs.

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2010
Although written as prose, this portrait of a high school "hoodie" seems that unlikely thing, a verse novel for boys, capturing the emotions, both torpid and turbulent, of adolescence in brief, charged paragraphs. Tenth-grader Kyle, addressed as "you" throughout the book, is one of those slouching, go-along kids, not a delinquent but not really much of anything else, either. He's always on the verge of flunking out, he won't get a part-time job, he won't ask out the girl he likes, Ashley. "Every day you get up, go to school, fake your way through your classes, come home, get hounded about your homework...go to bed-and the next day you get to do it all over again." But school becomes a bit more interesting with the arrival of Zack, kicked out of private school for reasons "you" won't fully understand until the last chapter. But in the meantime, Zack seems to want friendship, even helping Kyle out (with diabolical genius) when the school jocks decide he needs a lesson. The blackboard jungle evoked here is somewhat generic, and the second-person narration sometimes seems didactically shaped to diagram what goes on in the heads of the boys who sit at the back of the room. But the voice is consistent and convincing, and Kyle's awakening conscience, however thwarted by events, makes for a story not all that far from the Shakespeare plays his English teacher doesn't think he understands.

(Copyright 2010 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

June 1, 2010
Grades 8-12 Fifteen-year-old Kyle is a member of the hoodies. So named for their ubiquitous hooded sweatshirts, they are the slackers/burnouts/freaks common to every high school. In fact, Kyle would be the first to admit his commonnesshe gets picked on by bullies, he serves detention, he pines after a girl. The deadness he feels is impinged upon by the arrival of Zack, a private-academy transfer who wears sports coats, quotes philosophers, laughs at Shakespeare, and seems to have every student and teacher in the palm of his hand. Zack takes on Kyle as a sort of project, but his swank parties and daring escapades soon turn to deeds far darker. Benoits stylistic gamble here is the use of the second personyou, the reader, are Kyle. The gimmickry of it quickly fades; in fact, the reader identification helps fill in the gaps of an otherwise watery protagonist. Zack is a theatrical, Iago-like villain, and he makes a great foil to Kyles antihero in their twisted relationship. This is a brutal, fast, and satisfying read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2010
Quiet, hoodie-wearing slacker Kyle Chase has anger-control issues and wants to be left alone by his teachers, his parents and the rest of the world. He's constantly in trouble at school, and he spends most of his time hanging out with his similarly washed-up friends or pining after his crush. That is, until he meets Zack, a mysteriously manipulative bon vivant who takes him under his wing. At first Zack's schemes seem harmless--especially when they protect Kyle--but when they turn dangerous, Kyle finds he's in too deep to escape. Told completely in the second person, Benoit's first YA effort reads sharply and seamlessly, full of staccato, cut-to-the-action prose that will rivet teen readers � la Gail Giles or Kate Morgenroth. Readers will know that a train wreck is inevitable, and clever foreshadowing hints at Kyle's eventual downfall. Characters are all fully fleshed, with the exception of Kyle's parents, who sound more like adults in a Peanuts comic strip than parents. The novel's disturbing, ambiguous conclusion will provoke discussions about choices, right/wrong and responsibility. Harrowing. (Fiction. 12 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from August 1, 2010

Gr 8 Up-As the book opens, Kyle Chase wonders how he got himself into the dire situation he's in. Reflecting on the start of the school year, he recalls how his grades fell and he enrolled at Midlands High, while his friends headed to Odyssey. He met the hoodie crew and adopted their uniform of jeans, T-shirt, and black-hooded sweatshirts. He suppressed the guilt he felt after the group broke into the school. He tried to do the right thing and return a stolen wallet, but got suspended for three days for fighting. Doing catch-up work in the library, Kyle encounters witty and sarcastic Zack and chooses to follow him around. However, after losing a job opportunity, a potential girlfriend, and the respect of a teacher, Kyle begins to suspect that he is being sabotaged. Benoit's choice of second-person perspective allows readers to explore Kyle's motivations fully, but infuses the narrative with a moralizing undertone; an undertone that erupts during the teen's climactic self-evaluation. However, the sense of persecution and unfairness that dominates the text accurately captures his perspective. While the teen characters are well developed, the casual attention paid to the adults is obvious. When Kyle is offhandedly dismissed by his mother in an overheard conversation with his younger sister, the emotional response is honest and visceral. The rapid pace is well suited to the narrative, though sophisticated readers will be able to identify the twist exactly halfway through. In the end, Benoit creates a fully realized world where choices have impact and the consequences of both action and inaction can be severe.-Chris Shoemaker, The New York Public Library

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.