“Twisted,” by Laurie Halse Anderson

Although this novel is from the perspective of a seventeen year old boy, it deals with issues that any high school student has the potential to encounter. We are introduced to Tyler the summer before his senior year in high school, and told by him that he has committed some “foul deed”. He quickly elaborates and explains that he simply spray painted the school in order to stop being invisible to his classmates. After a summer of community service, including plenty of physical labor, things seem to start coming together for Tyler. Despite a dysfunctional family desperate to keep up their image, Tyler seems to begin moving beyond the struggle he has faced until this time. Bulked up from a summer of landscaping, Tyler has attracted the girl of his dreams and has begun to overcome the bullying that controlled his early schooling.

After Tyler walks in to the locker room to find his best friend being harassed by a group of sophomores, his first instinct is to run, but for the first time in his life he is able to defend himself as well as his friend. I found this quote to be not only extremely descriptive of the agony Tyler and his friend Yoda face, but also incredibly heartbreaking, “We didn’t talk about football or duct tape or sisters or fathers or crime or punishment. We didn’t talk about the time in seventh grade I had my face pushed into a toilet or when he used to get chased home from school or when we both used to hand over our lunch money so we wouldn’t get beat up or the plans we used to make to get back at the bullies or how weird all of this was because I had picked that Parker kid up off the ground and slammed him into a locker. We didn’t talk about what it felt like when they held him down or how hard he fought against crying or how close I came to killing Chip Milbury or if he needed help getting the tape off because we both knew if he asked, I’d do it, and we’d never talk about it again” (Anderson 74). This quote reveals the struggle Tyler faced previous to his senior year, and reveals the struggle that his friend Yoda still faces on a daily basis. Although life has improved for Tyler, it is evident that his high school career until this time was a nightmare. As a perspective teacher, this quote nearly made me cry while reading the book and still breaks my heart while reviewing it. The truly agonizing aspect about this quote is that despite Tyler’s brief ability to rise above the turmoil of his early life, everything takes a turn for the worst yet again when he goes to a party with Bethany. While at the party, he makes the very virtuous choice to not sleep with her, with the assumption that she will understand how difficult his choice was and see him for how wonderful he really is. Instead, she turns on him and ends the night with someone else. From there, life again becomes very complicated for Tyler as he is accused of attacking her while Bethany was in a drunken haze.

My first interaction with this novel began with the disclaimer, “Note: This is not a book for children,” written directly after the dedication. Although I was reading the book in hopes of recommending it to middle and high school students, this disclaimer made me nervous that it would not be appropriate for that age group. After reading it, I would say that it is absolutely appropriate for high school students, but I would consider it much more of an individual read than a whole class read. The book is from the perspective of a seventeen year old boy, and slightly wanders into his fantasies from time to time, thus I think students would be far more comfortable reading the book individually. I would recommend this novel to every high school student as it is one of the most accurate depictions I have ever read of high school, despite the turn for the worst near the end.