MY RATING
☆☆☆☆☆
SYNOPSIS
Most kids dream about a new bike, a pair of top-dollar sneakers endorsed by their favorite athlete, or that totally awesome videogame everyone’s raving about. But thirteen-year-old Jake and his little brother Matthew want nothing more than to escape from their abusive father. As soon as possible, they plan to run away to California, where they will reunite with their mother and live happily ever after.
It won’t be easy, though. After a scuffle with a local bully puts Jake’s arch-nemesis in the hospital, Sheriff Theresa McLelland starts poking her nose into their feud. During a trip to the family cabin for the opening weekend of deer-hunting season, Jake and Matthew kick their plan into action, leaving Dad tied to a chair as they flee into the night. Meanwhile, the bully and his father have their own plans for revenge, and the events to follow will forever change the lives of everyone involved…
MY REVIEW
All the stars!
It’s past midnight as I sit here, trying to gather my thoughts to write this review. Not because I don’t have anything to say, but because I was blown away by this story.
There’s something magical about coming of age stories — the well-executed ones, at least. They have such moving power, it’s quite hard to explain. If you get what I mean, then you know it.
What James and Mark did here is pure magic!
The writing is flawless, the story is as engaging as it gets, and it will haunt you (even when you’re not reading it).
Let me give you a taste:
“The sky is the color of concrete… gray as far as the eye can see, like the walls of a maximum-security prison or, worse yet, summer school. It is a sky that holds the threat of rain, maybe even the first snow of the season. The air is cold. The trees are bare and black, like the silhouettes of skeletal hands reaching toward the heavens. Fog swirls about on the forest floor, like ghosts gathered here to conspire about things only the dead can know.”
“In The Scrape” is a story about two young brothers, Matthew and Jake.
We witness the struggles and misadventures of the boys, as they go on about their lives while dealing with their abusive father.
They secretly plan to run away and go live with their mom. Which, according to their father, left the boys behind when she moved to California.
Not everything goes according to plan!
And that’s pretty much all I’ll be able to tell you.
This book packs such a punch in its 100 or so pages.
It was my first time reading both authors, need I say it won’t my last?
Go on, read this one as soon as you can!
Huge thanks to Silver Shamrock Publishing and NetGalley for sending me a copy of the book to review.
Thank you SO much, Rod!
This was a terrific read! Thank YOU!