- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Viking Children's Books (July 23 1997)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0670873357
- ISBN-13: 978-0670873357
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 14.2 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 408 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up. Zachary is an angry young man who is both attracted to and repelled by the violence he sees around him. He has dropped out of high school and become estranged from his girlfriend, and his best buddy has moved away. His rage, kept mostly in check, explodes sporadically in vicious fights. In the aftermath of one such melee, he finds a .38 and buries it in the garden. He lives comfortably with his divorced mother but has little enthusiasm for anything; his only goal is to pass his high school equivalency test. Then one day he gets a call telling him that his father has been shot during a robbery. As he watches the critically wounded man on the edge of death, he struggles to make sense of his own life. When the suspect is set free because of a lack of witnesses, Zachary digs up the handgun and tracks him down with the intent to kill him. At the last moment, he is unable to pull the trigger. Cadnum tells a thought-provoking story full of rich, well-developed characters. He immediately engages readers' attention and brilliantly maintains the pacing; tension is enhanced as scenes end abruptly. Well written, in language both simple and gripping, this book explores a variety of themes including the attraction of revenge, the tension between mother and son, the challenge of living up to one's father's accomplishments, and the flaws of our legal system.?Tim Rausch, Crescent View Middle School, Sandy, UT
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Gr. 8-12. Another upper-middle-class Bay Area family gets it in the neck--literally this time--as Cadnum follows up his heartbreaking Zero at the Bone (1996) with an equally devastating encounter with hard reality. Child of busy, prosperous divorced parents, Zachary has dropped out of high school to escape the attitudes and posturing but hasn't gotten the hang of being idle. To pay his mother back for the store window he broke with a punk's head, he lands a series of part-time jobs as he hangs out with a steady female friend and studies for his GED. Tragedy strikes suddenly: his father is shot in the spine in a street robbery. The probable perp is arrested; but despite eyewitness testimony, the case is judged too weak and the charges are dropped. Zachary goes home and digs up the .38 he had picked up in an earlier brawl. Cadnum's young narrator maintains a frighteningly detached tone, talking around important incidents, almost, but not quite, concealing his rage and confusion behind a wall of insignificant details and casually delivered revelations. In the end, Zachary throws the gun away unfired and joins his father, wheelchair bound but determined to keep working, in picking up the pieces. The family's pain comes through clearly, as does the haunting idea that not even the most rational, well-ordered lives are immune to random violence--readers will note that Zachary and his parents hold the moral high ground but will be paying a heavy price for years whereas the criminal escapes punishment. Just? Fair? Likely? Don't look to Cadnum for easy answers. John Peters
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
edge,
By A Customer
This review is from: Edge (Hardcover)
This book is a crazy book. it is good but kinda weird.... the best part in it was when the main chatior (zach) is talking about his gun 35. cal pistle. he is kinda crazy. the reason why he is crazy is bacause of his ex girl friend he grew distant from his high school friends and also he loses his dad to a shooting at a robary at a gas station. he gets shoot and zach goes crazy.. or goes off the edge just liek the book is called. so yeah this a a crazy book. But he gets so fed up with it that he is just sick of life. and he really thinks he shoud go to the hospital and get osme help. so he does and it kinda helps him but he just still doesnt see the point to life so he likes to talk to his stster about things it think. He also is talking to his best friend about things but it isnt working. his mom also doesnt reall uunderstand him but he is just crazy in the head. he hated the smel of the hospital because it reminded of his dad getting shoot....his favroit place to eat is deinas dinner. it is a place where this zach kid can chill out and think about things. thats all i can rember from it i also might have been thinking about a movie also.
4.0 out of 5 stars
On Edge,
By A Customer
This review is from: Edge (Hardcover)
Well this book is prety good I like the fact that it keeps you on the Edge of you seat wondering what is going to happen next.I also like this book because it is short and simple,and yet it still gives you the reality that Zachary the main character in the book goes through some of the same things I do,I guess thats why I can realate to this book so well.
4.0 out of 5 stars
On Edge,
By A Customer
This review is from: Edge (Hardcover)
Well this book is prety good I like the fact that it keeps you on the Edge of you seat wondering what is going to happen next.I also like this book because it is short and simple,and yet it still gives you the reality that Zachary the main character in the book goes through some of the same things I do,I guess thats why I can realate to this book so well.
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