Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Viking Juvenile (March 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670061018
• ISBN-13: 978-0670061013
• List Price: $16.99
• I finished this book on Nov. 17

First, let's say that I actually began listening to this book on Random House audio book read by Mike Chamberlain. However, this was proving to be a super pain in the ass, because my car is a time machine from 1995 and it has a tape player (remember those?) and my iTunes was being a bitch downloading the disks to my iPod. Wow, that was a horribly boring story. Sorry. Anyway, so I finally snagged the book at my library. We have two copies which have literally not sat on our shelves more than a day since the beginning of the school year. On Friday when I saw one in the return bin I did a little happy dance and claimed it as my own.
Okay, first thoughts: this book is about Tyler Miller who is a senior in high school and a bit of a loser by his own admission. It is a bit weird to have a grown man with excellent diction read this story in with a teenager's voice. Especially when he says things like "trouser snake" (yikes). Oh, would you like to hear it? No problem: booknerd provides. Please enjoy a clip of a chapter early on in the book courtesy of Random House Audio Publishing:
It's kinda weird, right? My favorite favorite is when the dude makes the "chicken" noise. Ba-gock! (which makes me think of Bangkok which makes me think of this.)
Anyway, so this cheerful sort of underdog story takes a pretty serious turn when some major shenanigans occur at a party. (for the record, I never knew of any party like this when I was in high school. where are these parties happening?) Tyler, having gotten busted for his Foul Deed (of defacing the school), is the first suspect after the shit goes down. Anywho: he goes through a lot and you really feel for the poor kid. Also, his dad is a turbo douche. (this is the second book in a row with a dad who's a total ass) but Tyler is lucky to have a cool mom, a cooler sister and a best friend who is named after a Star Wars character.
Of course I loved the other books that I've read by Mrs. Anderson, and I saw her speak once and she was phenomenal. She held someone in the crowd's baby, it was cute. She was very funny and cool. Either way, this one did not disappoint in any way and it's amazing to me that she's so versatile a writer. She writes these amazing books from the point of views of these very different characters, and of course a really cool historical fiction book too. I can't wait to read more of her books, if they ever make it back to the library...