From School Library Journal
Grade 6-10If only this book had ended with a dwarf dancing in a red velvet room, the mysterious similarities to Twin Peaks could be recognized as artful parody or even homage. Here, a group of city students spend a weekend in a rural town on an exchange program designed to expose them to different lifestyles and examine country/city stereotypes. When one of the local students is murdered, the search for her killer forces the town to confront other issues including racial prejudice. The authors heavily expository poems are usually in the form of a monologue expressing either a characters thoughts or a bit of conversation, but rarely demand much from readers. Glenns style is a kind of quick-sketch shorthand that is the literary equivalent of the two-minute caricature bought at an amusement park. At first glance, the selections appear to have captured characters but on closer examination they are stereotypes who never come to life. As poetry or mystery, this title is a disappointment.Herman Sutter, Saint Pius X High School, Houston, TX
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Like
Who Killed Mr. Chippendale?, Glenn's latest is a mystery in only the broadest sense. It's bound to be popular anyway, as, like Glenn's other ventures into free verse, it reflects what teens think about and deal with in their everyday lives--relationships with parents, sex, school, the future. This time prejudice--class and race--are added to the mix. A group of urban teens is spending the weekend with high-school students who live in the small town of Hudson Landing. When one of the Landing's own, the attractive daughter of the owner of the new supermarket, is found strangled, mixed-race Kwame from the "dangerous" big city is tapped as the killer. The story unfolds through the first-person, free-verse reflections of teens and grown-ups, which gradually reveal the prejudices, the anger, and the secrets that flow beneath the surface of the outwardly placid Hudson Landing. A few characters emerge strongly enough to give readers a hook to grasp, but because narrators frequently change, careful reading is a must. There's a disconcerting absence of joy in the teens' lives, and sometimes the text is over the top ("the windswept landscape of their loneliness"), but there's also much that will sound familiar--no matter which place, city or small town, teenagers call home. The drama isn't in the action or the mystery, but in the feeling behind the words.
Stephanie Zvirin
