Charles BenoitCritiques

This book is very well written, which only makes it that much harder to read because it makes all the horrible things that happen more believable. I was eagerly anticipating this book, but for some reason I wasn't prepared for it to be so brutal. Must be all those Disney happy endings - I still think everything will be okay in the end, even when the first page of the book tells you it won't. I wanted to stop it all from happening - and some characters I just wanted to pick up and shake until they stopped being jerks - most of them, actually. I only gave it two stars because I can't be really enthusiastic about something so cruel and sad, but it's a good book. Just be prepared for it to freak you out.

Very trippy. Almost like a Choose Your Own Adventure except you don't die by page three.

"I know your secret." In Cold Calls, Eric, Fatima, and Shelly all start getting calls from someone with a computer altered voice that blackmails each of them into bullying a particular student in each of their schools. The final event is to be dumping macaroni and cheese onto the head of each student during lunch on a particular Thursday. After running across each other in a weekend antibullying class, the three decide to find out who is making them ruin their lives and why.
This is a very good mystery, giving the reader insight into the personalities of each character, while sharing why each is being blackmailed. However, the characters are difficult to like because of what has happened in their pasts and how they each handled their situations.

Teen fiction; high school pressures for boys. This book propels you along nicely, giving glimpses of past indiscretions and trouble to come, and then when you get to the end you think, that's all? THAT is the whole reason for this whole plot? True, it may not be small potatoes to the main character, but it's pretty anticlimactic and dumb, especially since he's not even particularly that good of a friend to the girl in question. I can deal with the hero not being much of a hero, and I I liked the development of the characters with all the shifty-ness and shadiness, but it was a story I could easily have done without. Also, it makes me really sorry for this boy's mom--you can tell she's trying to help him, she can't help that she asks all the wrong questions and that he's going to ignore her anyway.

I could go on and on about how this book made me think and feel but I'm afraid I would pass Goodreads' character limit, so I'll try to keep it short enough. People have compared it to the works of Ellen Hopkins, and it is a very apt comparison indeed except that in the case of You everything is directed at the reader - the reader becomes the main character, pulled forcefully into the action. For young teens who are currently experiencing what You's troubled protagonist is going through, this will be a quite effective slim book to read.

It also helps that the main protag is one that readers will be confused and conflicted on whether he's someone to cheer for or someone to hate. This is, of course, up to each reader to decide for themselves - I personally found him lacking in features that would make me like him, as most of his misfortune is pretty much his fault. The fact that I feel this so vehemently - and the fact that I can't get this bloody book out of my head days after reading it - is a powerful testament to this book's staying power. It will pull violently at your emotions, twist and turn them, and never let go until the final page, in which the novel's ending pages will sit in your mind and haunt your thoughts in the most delicious ways for days to come. If you like your YA books with a believable male protag caught up in his own cautionary tale with a unique POV twist and is very dark in nature, you will absolutely love You. It won't take you very long to read it - because once you start, it will be hard to put it down until it's over.

Note of Discretion: A free copy of You was provided to me via a free contest held by Goodreads and HarperCollins.

This wasn't the way it was supposed to go.

You're just a typical fifteen-year-old sophomore, an average guy named Kyle Chase. This can't be happening to you. But then, how do you explain all the blood? How do you explain how you got here in the first place?

There had to have been signs, had to have been some clues it was coming. Did you miss them, or ignore them? Maybe if you can figure out where it all went wrong, you can still make it right. Or is it already too late? Think fast, Kyle. Time's running out. How did this happen?

You is the riveting story of fifteen-year-old Kyle and the small choices he does and doesn't make that lead to his own destruction.

In his stunning young-adult debut, Charles Benoit mixes riveting tension with an insightful—and unsettling—portrait of an ordinary teen in a tale that is taut, powerful, and shattering.

A book written from second person perspective. (Audio) made it a bit hard to follow. It is a young adult story and is set in high school. It covers things like poor communication between parents, etc, consequences of decisions. It was okay.

3.5

I downloaded this book from Audiobooksync, I believe over the summer.

Kyle Chase attends high school and cares about one person, a girl. The rest of his life deals with sarcasm and judging everyone else. He seems to dislike his parents although he does enjoy his sister. He dislikes all teachers and the principal. Basically, he does nothing with his life but feels superior to all else. Enter the new kid: Zach.

Zach, brilliantly smart, finds everyone's weakness. Despite this cruelty, he seems to have quite a few friends from his former school. He finds Kyle an interesting specimen. Yes, he finds Kyle's weak spot. Do you see where this is going? Yes, it's the girl.

Kyle speaks to the reader the entire time, saying things like, "You are surprised at all the blood.

He looks over at you, eyes wide, mouth dropping open, his face almost as white as his shirt.

He's surprised, too." (beginning of the book)

The reader spends the book finding out what happened here at the end/beginning. I didn't care for the book and am surprised by the many good reviews. I found the "talking at me" annoying. I found Kyle judgemental, lazy, annoying, and stupid. I found Zach judgemental, annoying, and ultimately naive at his own inability to see truth while believing he knows truth. I sped the audio up so that it would end as quickly as possible--just to see what all the blood was about. I think boys might enjoy reading this book--they'll relate to the characters. Girls could learn about who NOT to date.½

This book was so fantastic. Such a twist at the end. So ominous but in a good way.

If I could just get past the fact that the person who made the three teens do these acts of bullying DIDN'T actually know the kids, I probably would have liked the book a lot more but I can't. The motivation of Morgan Rouleau just didn't ring true for me - it required too big a leap of faith to get me to believe that she would a) bully three randomly selected strangers just to get back at three people who were mean to her at a theatre camp AND b) that she would have the computer skills to pull it off. It just didn't work for me and because of that I felt kind of cheated when the book came to an end.

Charles Benoit takes a risk with this unique spin on p.o.v. It was one of those book-in-a-day reads, with an unexpected resolution that made it worth the time.

Far less sharp and shocking than the reviews would have one believe, but the swiftness of the text left little time to dwell on such details.

Strange book . . . Hard to get used to 2nd person narration. The end - didn't really like.

"I know your secret." In Cold Calls, Eric, Fatima, and Shelly all start getting calls from someone with a computer altered voice that blackmails each of them into bullying a particular student in each of their schools. The final event is to be dumping macaroni and cheese onto the head of each student during lunch on a particular Thursday. After running across each other in a weekend antibullying class, the three decide to find out who is making them ruin their lives and why.
This is a very good mystery, giving the reader insight into the personalities of each character, while sharing why each is being blackmailed. However, the characters are difficult to like because of what has happened in their pasts and how they each handled their situations.

I hated this book!!½

Synopsis: During his travels in Thailand, Mark Rohr meets a woman who is looking for her brother. She thought he had been killed in the tsunami, but a news report showed him in the background. In the process Mark finds a group of pirates and a terrorist plot.
Review: Nice depiction of Thailand after the tsunami. Good plot, but the ending doesn't feel like the story is finished. Would have been nice to have a follow-up book or two.½

I really like the way this book was written. It made me feel like I was a part of the story. It really gets you thinking about life choices. 5Q4P The cover art is awesome and I'd recommend this book to high school students. I chose to read this book because I like stories written in this type of perspective. JenniferW

Gross and disgusting after just a few pages. Nope

I enjoyed reading this YA story and am thinking it would fit best in the preteen to younger members of the YA community. Older readers would consider it lame. The other category of readers that might be attracted to this book would be the reluctant or non-reader crowd. They might be drawn to the subject matter, keeping secrets and being bullied by peers, and since it is a quick read, the length would not be a stumbling block. If your child is participating in a summer reading project, this, again, might be a good choice: fast read, contemporary theme, phones, texting, computers, selfies, pranks, kids making bad choices, struggle with religious training, family dysfunction, teenage love troubles. My thanks to Goodreads and the author for a complimentary copy of this book.

This was a fast and thrilling read! Interesting look at the world of bullies, their motives and the price of keeping secrets.

AUTHOR: Benoit, Charles
TITLE: Cold Calls
Date Read: 02/24/14
RATING: 4/B
GENRE/PUB DATE/PUBLISHER/# OF PGS: YA/2014/Clarion/278 pgs
SERIES/STAND ALONE: S/A

TIME/PLACE: Present/Mid-west USA
CHARACTERS: Eric, Shelly, Fatima -- high school students

FIRST LINES: The phone rang and he answered it. Later, when it looked like it was over, he'd think back on that moment & what he could have done different.

COMMENTS: Three high school students that attend different schools and don't know each other get threatening calls. Each one is told "I know your secret" and if you don't do what I tell you…your secret will be disclosed. They follow-through and carry-out what they have been told which is bullying someone they haven't had any former interaction w/. The consequences for them besides their parents being very disappointed and a suspension from school is they all have to take a weekend class on bullying -- HABIT -- helping accused bullies inspire tolerance. These 3 recognize something, that they are really not the typical bully & come together & discover they each have been contacted by the same altered voice phone calls. This is a rapid read and keeps you turning the pages to find out how they will find out who is behind the calls and why.

Synopsis: Douglas grew up wondering about the relative no one would talk about, Uncle Russ. Living in a small town, working in a beer refinery left Douglas fantasizing about the exciting life his uncle must have lived before he was murdered in Singapore. Surprisingly, Doug receives a phone call from Edna, one of Russell's old friends; thus begins Doug's adventures in Morocco, Cairo, and Singapore to discover how Russ really died and what happened to a grape-size red diamond.
Review: This book was a lot of fun to read. In some ways it is a 'coming of age' tale, while in others it harkens back to a young Indiana Jones. Having visited the locals, the descriptions took me back to the winding alleyways and the mysterious, sometimes threatening natives. It's too bad that Benoit has abandoned adult books and is writing young adult/children's fiction.½

Few writers write as brilliantly about adolescent angst Charles Benoit does in this novel. Robert Cormier, Chris Crutcher, Robert Lipsyte, Chris Lynch are a few that come to mind. Benoit is definitely in that league. This is one of the best YA novels I have read this year. Brutally honest realism.

This story is full of angst and it's real. The characters are definitely believable and their feelings are true. Charles Benoit does a fantastic job of using Kyle to twist Zack's world.