graffiti
A band tour/life changing tour
Colby has been best friends with Bev ever since they were young children. (They are now high school graduates.) Bev is in a band with two other young women, Meg and Alexa. The band has some end of the summer gigs before college begins. Colby is the driver for the band on this small tour. Through his eyes we discover his conflicts over who he is; how he behaves; how he misunderstands relationships around him. (I give the author a lot of credit for being able to write as a teen male protagonist.) The tour, and all of the events that the four experience during it (running Sunday to Saturday)both large and small, show how one intense week can change the course of lives. Colby finally gets both closer to Bev and, in my opinion, healthily dis-attached so that he can shape his own future. The teens witnessing of the adults in their lives and how they have coped with "life questions" gave a layer of richness to the story. This book also highlighted that no matter what stage you are in your life, there are struggles. However, art (in all its forms) is a powerful elixir.
The Writing On the Wall
The book i read, The Writing on the Wall, is about a girl named Tess, who turns in a boy named Richard for stealing a test. There is a wall at their school which is illegally graffitied on. Richard starts whispering and writhing threats to Tess. Then Tess Finds a four fours code on the graffiti wall, and figures it's for her. After school, she hangs out with a boy named Damien. They go back to the wall, and figure out the code means arson. Tess buys some paint sticks and paints the word: WHERE, on the wall in code. The grafitiest answers back: 2-0-8. Tess figures out that it is the computer room in school. A wastebasket full of test papers was burned.After school, Tess went to a candy store. There, a girl named Lucia Shoplifts tree chocolate bars and a mint. Tess does not tell on her because she doesn't want to be a snitch. In the end, Tess finds out the class clown Marcus is behind the arson. She and Lucia work things out and become friends. I think it is a good book worth reading.
