Endgame [Paperback]

Nancy Garden (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books (2006)
• ASIN: B000OJX6N0
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely powerful; one of Garden's best yet, May 31, 2006

By 

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

This review is from: Endgame (Hardcover)

"It's my hope that Gray's story will help both kids and adults think seriously about bullying, and realize that stopping bullying needs to be a priority in our schools. I also hope that it will perhaps lead some readers to empathize with Gray --- and to thereby understand that people of any age who strike out at others have often been victims themselves."
- Nancy Garden

Nancy Garden is the recipient of the 2003 Margaret A. Edwards Award --- an honor that celebrates an author's lifetime contribution in writing for young adults. She has published more than 30 books, and her latest novel, ENDGAME, is one of her best yet. Moved by the horrific events that transpired at Columbine, Garden responded by writing a novel that gets inside the head of a young boy like Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold (the Columbine shooters) and attempts to explain both the "how" and the "why" behind his irreparable actions. Intensely powerful, heartbreaking and frighteningly relevant, ENDGAME should be made required reading and discussed in both classrooms and at home.

The novel opens with 15-year-old Gray Wilton (he was 14 at the time of the shooting) sitting in his cell in a juvenile detention center. His lawyer is interviewing him in preparation for the trial in order to get his side of the story of the events that transpired. As the conversation progresses, Sam Falco (Gray's lawyer) pokes and prods Gray with questions, and Gray answers them as if he has nothing to lose. He killed four of his classmates and is proud of his accomplishments. What is the point of holding anything back just because he was caught before he could blow his own brains out like he originally planned?

As Gray relays the details of the weeks/months leading up to the shooting, readers are given a fly-on-the-wall's view of the relentless torture and humiliation that he was forced to endure both at his new school and at home. Ever since he could remember, Gray had been the object of teasing by boys who were older and bigger than him. At Greenford High, the situation was no different. Zorro and Johnson, two of the star players for the Varsity football team, picked him out immediately and proceeded to make fun of him, push him around, and beat him up just for the fun of it (including the time they forced him to drink black paint and when they tried to force him to give his friend oral sex in the locker room shower). They went so far as to destroy Gray's cherished drums (though Gray could never prove it) and run over his beloved dog, Barker, while out joy-riding one night with friends. Although Gray tried to "take it" at first, Zorro and his meathead friends clearly pushed Gray to the breaking point.

At home, circumstances weren't any better. His older brother, Peter, was picture-perfect and idolized by his father as the son he'd always wanted to have. His mother was basically a wallflower --- nice and semi-supportive of Gray but spineless when it came to standing up to her husband (mostly in matters concerning Gray). His father was ultra-critical of him, irked by his passion for music ("Music's a frill; music's not going to get him a job or the right friends no matter how much he likes it or how good he is at it!") and quite obviously disappointed in him because he wasn't more like Peter. As for his father's response to Gray's being bullied: "Like I told you back at Parker, there are bullies everywhere. What you have to do is not give anyone any reason to bully you...Go out for a sport like your brother...Let it be known that you're tough...Tell the guys that you hunt with me and Pete...Laugh it off...But if it gets really bad, fight back. Give as good as you get, but with fists, Gray. That's all any real guy really needs." As if laughing it off or joining the basketball team is a viable solution to bullying.

By the end of Gray's version of the story, readers will be horrified by what he has had to endure and disgusted by the fact that no one stepped in to help him, especially his parents. How could life get so complicated for a boy that young? Why did he have access to his father's semi-automatic in the first place? Why did the media paint him as subhuman, "an angry loner addicted to violence in the form of shoot-em-up video games, hunting, archery, and the loud, pulsating music he often played on his drums," when in reality he hated hunting, was passionate about any kind of music, and was in desperate need of someone to believe in him?

ENDGAME is a brutally honest and disquieting commentary on how off-the-mark authority figures (including family members) can be. The story that Garden tells is fictional but one that mirrors what is possible in today's violent, finger-pointing society. In the end, we realize that it is not so much Gray who is to blame for the shooting, but each and every one of us who refuses to spend the time to understand how and why such horrors occur and what we can do to stop them from happening again.

--- Reviewed by Alexis Burling

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ready, Aim...RUN!, April 20, 2006

By 

BeatleBangs1964 (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Endgame (Hardcover)

Grayson "Gray" Wilton is a walking time bomb. He lives in the shadow of his brother, Peter, 17 ("Perfect Peter") and punitive father. The boy has a talent for drums and song writing and spends his free time playing his drums and composing songs.

Gray's family was forced to leave their home in Massachusetts after Gray pulled a knife on two boys who had been harassing him. Forced to relocate to the small town of Greenford, Connecticut, Gray runs into many of the same problems. He can never count on recourse from his punitive father and the boy's mother appears to be an echo, shadow and reflection with no real influence. Even the boy's teachers appear ineffectual; they in effect look the other way when Gray is being bullied.

Gray does make one friend at Greenford. Ross shares Gray's interest in computers and allows Gray to play on his since Gray's father won't allow him to use the home computer. The boys try to stick together after they become targeted by Zorro and Johnson, two football players who hound the boys mercilessly. They destroy Gray's drums so he can't play them in the Christmas pageant; they force Gray to drink paint; kill his dog; gang up on Gray in the halls and locker room. The coach condones the jocks; they are the town's pride and have been fed a sense of entitlement.

Matters intensify; Gray and Ross are sexually traumatized during the latter part of the year. One wonders why they don't tell a parent/teacher/some other trusted person about the level of abuse and ridicule they are forced to endure. They go out of their way to avoid the jocks, including entering the school via the basement so as to avoid them.

You just want to kick Gray's father in the shins for blaming Gray for their dog's death. The boorish oaf goes so far as to say that Gray should have been run over instead. His brand of counseling is to tell the boy to "toughen up" and take ribbings like a man. What sexist baloney! Gray was being targeted and harassed to the point of danger and he could not even count on his own father for protection.

Gray's father seems determined to take away the things Gray loves most. He limits the time Gray is allowed to play his drums; forces Gray to use special practice pads to muffle the sound; forces him to go hunting against his will and is generally boorish, rigid and unreasonable.

The story is intense; jarring; cutting edge and culminates in a round of shots. Gray's life is out of control and, once he commits a desperate act is forced to examine the consequence.

This is truly one of the best cutting edge books I've read. The characters are plausible and Gray's attorney Mr. Falco is a truly exemplary character. Readers can't help being moved by the efforts of this one man. Adam Meyers' "The Last Domino" is an excellent companion book to this one.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well-written but over long for my tastes, March 30, 2008

By 

WritingGuy "JDH" (Columbia, MO USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Endgame (Hardcover)

Endgame is well-written. There is no doubting the author's craft here. Her main character is spot on, and her portrayal of the anguish he feels at being bullied put me squarely in his shoes. And that's where I start having problems. The story offers no surprises. The endgame is known right from the start--the character admits he's a murderer on page 1, and there are bullet holes on the cover--and I was fine with all that. It's just that the pacing is too slow. By page eighty-eight, I'd had enough with the bullying and wanted to know what Gray had done about it, so I skipped ahead. Know what? I don't think I missed anything I needed. {SPOILER ALERT!} Ok, so the bullies apparently ran over his dog, and they tried to get him to have oral sex with his best friend, and there may be other incidents of bullying I didn't read, but I didn't need them to get the story. So, if I didn't need them, why are they there?

As a side note, and this is not meant as a criticism of this story, the bullies in Endgame are extreme. I am a middle school teacher, and I deal with bullying and its effects every day, so I know that extreme bullies do exist. I just also know that it doesn't take extreme bullies to provoke extreme desperation on the part of those they torment. Contrary to the old saying (sticks and stones. . .), all it takes are words.