Dead on Town Line [Hardcover]

Leslie Connor (Author), Gina Triplett (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 16, 2005

Of all the revelations her afterlife brings, perhaps the most startling thing Cassie Devlin discovers is that being dead isn’t being done. Murdered by a classmate, Cassie finds herself stuck on the edges of the world she once knew and a realm whose tug she feels but can’t quite find her way to. And . . . she is not alone.There’s another like her, who arrived earlier and who, like Cassie, has some unfinished business. Beautifully crafted in electrifying free verse, Dead on Town Line offers teens an emotionally provocative, can’t-put-it-down reading experience that will linger long after the last page is turned.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up -A powerful story, told in free verse from the perspective of a teenage murder victim. Cassie's body lies hidden in a crevice, where she tries to figure out what happens next. She meets the ghost of Birdie, another murdered girl who was hidden in the same crevice years earlier. But while people are desperately searching for Cassie, Birdie says, "Ain't nobody to care 'bout me…I'm jus' a missin' chicken,/Penny down a drain." Each verse/chapter adds a piece to the puzzle of Cassie's death until her body is found and the crime is solved. The deceased girls are able to help Cassie's loved ones find a sense of closure and complete her life's work, a piano composition. The language is lyrical and haunting, adding to the suspense. The details of the natural world surrounding the victims give the story an ethereal quality. Adding to it are the black-and-white drawings depicting images from Cassie's life and death. The free-verse style does not allow for much character development, without which it's difficult to understand exactly what motivated the senseless act. Otherwise, this is an absorbing and moving story.-Sonja Cole, Briarcliff Middle School, Mountain Lakes, NJ
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 8-11. This captivating novel slowly unfolds through a series of short, free-verse poems, which are written from the viewpoint of a murdered girl named Cassie. The poems begin as the confused ghost of Cassie observes her own search party in the woods, where her body has been buried in a shallow grave. There, Cassie meets the ghost of a young black woman, who, along with the child she carried, was murdered many years before. The poems recount Cassie's murder at the hands of a classmate, how Cassie's body and those of other ghosts are eventually discovered, and the apprehension of Cassie's murderers. In the end, Cassie finds a way to reach out to her loved ones. Connor's poetry successfully mixes sharp, concrete images with Cassie's memorable voice and a bit of teen melodrama. Triplett's sporadic, full-page graphic artwork of nature and symbolic objects extends the sense of shifting between worlds with strong lines and bold contrasts. For another book about the dead looking back, give teens Gary Soto's The Afterlife (2003). Todd Morning
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Dial; Ex-Library edition (June 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803730217
• ISBN-13: 978-0803730212
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,417,252 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poignant, memorable, and hard to put down, June 28, 2005

By 

Teenreads.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dead on Town Line (Hardcover)

In this story told in free verse, the reader begins with the chilling revelation that the 16-year-old narrator, Cassie, is dead. She watches the dogs search for her, but her body is well hidden. She recollects, bit by bit, the details of her murder. As the searchers walk the grid looking for clues to her disappearance, Cassie muses about her associations with them. She worries over the loved ones she's left behind, particularly her mother and her boyfriend, Kyle. Cassie also recalls uncomfortable interactions with the needy and mean Gail Sherman, now walking the grid. Then Cassie poignantly remembers her choice to delay making love with Kyle because she felt they had all the time in the world. Now that chance is forever gone.

Cassie realizes that she can't leave yet to go on to what's beyond; she still has something she must do here first. She contemplates death as well as some surprises --- such as her sudden knowledge that she can affect matter by swaying tree branches or tumbling a leaf. However, her biggest revelation is that she's not alone. Another dead girl, Birdie, keeps Cassie company as they share stories about their lives. Birdie, too, feels that she can't quite leave for the next world.

DEAD ON TOWN LINE invites comparisons with THE LOVELY BONES in subject matter, and yet is completely unlike it in style. The verses are spare and lovely, depicting Cassie's love for music and despair over her many losses. Some of the images, of murder and of what happens to a body after death, are fleetingly brutal but appropriate. The depiction of Cassie's death is heartbreaking and chilling, yet leaves the reader with an uplifting hope. It was impossible to stop reading Cassie's highly original story, and I found the ending to be poignant and memorable.

[...]

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars so dark, yet so hopeful, August 18, 2008

By 

Elizabeth - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dead on Town Line (Hardcover)

I loved this book. Loved the story of these two women bonding in an unlikely way-- killed in the same place, many years apart -- learning together what it is to be dead, and trying to find a way to get on to "the next."


"I threw my brand-new ghost
At that body --
My body.
Wanted to

GET

BACK

IN.

Wanted to slide my soul
Back down into those fingertips.
But it was all closed up --
My vessel,
My wreck.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hauntingly Beautiful..., February 23, 2006

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dead on Town Line (Hardcover)

I had to lower the rating on this book, not because it wasn't a good story (it's a very beautiful, poignant one) or because of the style of the writing (the book is written in free verse). I did it because, after buying a hardcover book, it took me fifteen minutes to read it.

Cassie Devlin lived a pretty good life--a loving mother, friends at school, a wonderful boyfriend named Kyle, outstanding ability to write music and play the piano, and a group of like-wise minded musical players at school called Composer's Workshop. Everything was wonderful, until Gail Sherman entered and world and, ultimately, ended her life.

DEAD ON TOWN LINE is a hauntingly beautiful story, tellling the story of Cassie's death and how she realizes that being dead doesn't mean you're finished with things here on Earth. She meets another young girl like herself there in the in-between, and together they work to right the wrongs that have been done to them.