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All over the world people are following the journey of their books through BookCrossing, by making an entry you will be helping keep this book's unique history up-to-date.

part of a purchase from my bookclub, part of my effort to register all of the books in my TBR shelf

"Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack." --Virginia Woolf

If you found this book while in the area of San Luis Obispo, CA. feel free to come by and check out Joe Mommas which houses our bookshelf! We also hold our local meetups on the first Tuesday of each month at 5pm there, please come join the fun! The books on the shelf are free to for you to read, enjoy and pass along to another!

will be honest I did not read this, I tried, but couldn't get past the first couple of chapters. taking to our local meetup, if not picked by a fellow bookcrosser this will be on the shelf for another to enjoy!


"A book is a mysterious object, I said, and once it floats out into the world, anything can happen. All kinds of mischief can be caused, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it. For better or worse, it's completely out of your control."
Paul Auster

Picked up from bookcrossing meeting in Avila Beach today.

I was several short chapters in before I realized that this book really is all "testimony". It is a kind of testimony from several persons about an incident that happened at a private secondary school in Vermont, a place called Avery.

A number of persons, from the persons directly involved to a reporter to various relatives, offer their testimony in separate chapters. In some cases the person is speaking directly to a presumed researcher about the case, in the first person. In other cases the chapter is written in the third person about one of the characters. Some characters soon gain a lead in presence, so that we get to understand who the main characters are.

The incident is a sexual one, caught vividly on videotape, and it takes place in one of the dorm rooms. When the headmaster, Mike, is given the tape he is torn about how to manage what he knows will be a scandal. For personal and school-protective reasons he makes some bad decisions. As we read the bits from each of the actors we gradually build up the story not only of what took place the night of the taping but what led up to it.

In the end, one of the "perps" speaks from a few years in the future, and tries to explain the "why" of it. He doesn't have all the facts - but we do - and between what he says and what we have learned we can make some kind of sense of it all. Yet I think the real story is in the "what-ifs", the many different possible responses to each of the building blocks.

It is a sad story and not one of redemption. I found it easy to read and follow, yet the method of story-telling, while useful for some purposes, tended to blunt my ability to care about key characters. In spite of which I did get attached to two young people, and their story is the most tragic. So I was left feeling a bit gutted.

Bringing to bookcrossing meeting. If not taken, it will be left in the vicinity of Panera Bread - inside or outside.

Passed along to me by marymat.