Although young adults (late teens, usually) and I are separated by at least two generations, I’ve enjoyed many YA novels and have found them to be appropriate to any aged reader, but not for young children. However, some of them might contain language, use of alcohol and drugs, and sexual behavior that would be offensive to some.
Jessica Goodman’s YA novels all involve privileged youths, usually from America’s upper class, and often from the top tiers of the upper class, as was the case with her first novel, “They Wish They Were Us.” I think that this was her best novel in this genre. She followed it with “They’ll Never Catch Us,” “The Counselors,” “The Legacies,” and “The Meadowbrook Murders.” Each of which can be recommended if you want an inside peek at life at the top.
Her most recent book, “Lies Between Us” (2026, 293 pages in softcover format) deals with the youths of two families who are neighbors, the Silvers and the Golds. The Silvers have three boys, Ethan, Trevor, and Alex. The Golds have three daughters, Lucy, Millie, and Frankie. And, of course, the children’s ages match. Their otherwise idyllic summer is marred when Billy Goodwin is found dead, floating in the Long Island Sound after a drunken party. The story is told alternately by each of the Gold sisters, and I found that to be a bit disconcerting. There are also a lot of characters to keep track of, and I had to turn frequently to the blank back page of the book where I wrote the names to remind me of who’s who. So, overall, this was far from my favorite novel in this genre.
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Greg Iles, “The Death Factory” (2014, 87 pages with a 14-page preview of his Penn Cage novel Natchez Burning) is a novella that will be appreciated by fans of Penn Cage. The slim book provides a backstory, particularly for Iles’ trilogy “The Quiet Game,” “Turning Angel,” and “Devil’s Punchbowl.”
In the novella, really a long short story, Penn Cage is sitting by his father’s death bed, presumably waiting for some dark secret that Dr. Cage will reveal. But, as his father appears to be rallying, Penn takes his uncle Jack on a long car ride, during which he reveals his life in “the death factory.”
When he worked for the D.A. in Houston, TX, he was a strong believer in the death penalty. And this fit well with Texas sentiment. So, people who were found guilty of heinous crimes were summarily sentenced to death, and justice was swift. However, when Cage discovers that some of the evidence was tainted, he does a 180 on the death penalty.
Although The Death Factory is often referred to as 3.5 in the Iles trilogy, I think that a preferred order of reading would be The Quiet Game, The Death Factory, Turning Angel, and Devil’s Punchbowl. This sequence covers the various events in Penn Cage’s life after his return to Natchez.
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Puede contactar a Jim Glynn en j_glynn@att.net.