Monday, August 9, 2010

Hit and Run by Lurlene McDaniel

Publisher:  Laurel Leaf, 2009
Pages:  192
Source:  My shelves
Genre:  Young Adult Realistic Fiction

Hit and run is a story told through the voice of four different people.  Before I give my review I must say it was an emotional read for me in many ways.  Lurlene McDaniels' books are always emotional, but I had several connections to this book.  I'll try to be brief.  As I read the opening, which were the thoughts of Analise I thought of two people.  First was a boyfriend I had in my senior year.  He was injured in a motorcycle accident and his parents were told he didn't understand anything going on.  I wrote letters of encouragement to him and his parents read them to him and placed them under his pillow.  He came out of his coma four months later and his mom called and said he'd asked for me because of my letters.  He'd heard them.  The second person was  my cousin who'd had an accident and she also lay in a coma for several months.  She talked about being able to hear what people said and understanding them but at the same time she was unable to communicate back with them.  My final connection was with Analise's parents.  Three weeks before my sons fifth birthday, while he and two of his cousins played in the front yard a truck ran off of the road into our yard and hit my son.  What made this so heinous was the driver kept on going, making a delivery and telling his customer he thought he'd hit a kid.  The only reason he was brought back was because a man making a delivery across from our house chased him down and brought him back to await the police.  The cold heartedness of this man I equated with pure evil.  He claimed he had not hit my son, my son hit his truck.  My son lived, just by the grace of God, and outside of a permanent back injury is well enough to be in the military.

This was an excellent book.  One that I could not put down.  Quin is an athlete pushed by his father to let nothing stand in the way of his athletic career, not a girl and not a hit and run accident.  Laurie is the girl who is so pushed to fit in with the "in" crowd by her mother that she will throw out what she knows is right to get what she wants.  What she wants is Quin.  Analise is the victim of a hit and run accident.  She is locked inside her body unable to communicate with those she loves.  Her boyfriend Jeremy proves he loves her by staying by her side all the way through the book.  This is a hard look at right and wrong.  Something I know teens can relate to.  I loved this book and before I take it back to school I will lend it to my daughter who first introduced me to Lurlene McDaniel's books.  Sorry I made her wait so long.

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