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Escape Theory

ebook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available
Sixteen-year-old Devon Mackintosh has always felt like an outsider at Keaton, the prestigious California boarding school perched above the Pacific. As long as she’s not fitting in, Devon figures she might as well pad her application to Stanford’s psych program. So junior year, she decides to become a peer counselor, a de facto therapist for students in crisis. At first, it seems like it will be an easy fly-on-the-wall gig, but her expectations are turned upside down when Jason Hutchins (a.k.a. “Hutch”), one of the Keaton’s most popular students, commits suicide.
 
Devon dives into her new role providing support for Hutch’s friends, but she’s haunted by her own attachment to him. The two shared an extraordinary night during their first week freshman year; it was the only time at Keaton when she felt like someone else really understood her.  As the secrets and confessions pile up in her sessions, Devon comes to a startling conclusion: Hutch couldn't have taken his own life. Bound by her oath of confidentialityand tortured by her unrequited love—Devon embarks on a solitary mission to get to the bottom of Hutch's death, and the stakes are higher than she ever could have imagined.
Read an excerpt of Escape Theory. http://bit.ly/Yi5DZf
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  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from January 21, 2013
      TV writer Froley makes a stellar debut with this problem novel/thriller hybrid that might be the boarding school answer to Conroy’s The Lords of Discipline. Junior Devon Mackintosh, one of the scholarship student “have-nots” at the ritzy Keaton School, is the school’s first peer counselor. When popular student Jason “Hutch” Hutchins dies in a presumed suicide, Devon’s therapy sessions with grieving students become much more intense than she expected. Exacerbating matters are Devon’s history with Hutch and the secrets she learns from Hutch’s girlfriend, best friend, and others, all of which convince her that Hutch couldn’t have taken his own life. Meanwhile, Devon’s romantic life is heating up, as her friend Grant returns to school looking hunkier than before. Even if the privileged environment and its prescription drug and alcohol abuse have been seen before, Froley uses the setting well, avoiding caricatures and letting her characters’ apparent shallowness dissolve, as Devon quizzes them both in and out of therapy. With a heady mix of mystery and emotional turmoil, Froley gives readers compelling character development (even with a large cast) and a fast-paced plot. Ages 14–up.

    • School Library Journal

      May 1, 2013

      Gr 9 Up-Veronica Mars meets Nancy Drew in this scandalous mystery set in a prestigious school in California. This fast-paced novel weaves emotionally rich characters into a complex web of unspoken rules and painful secrets, including love, betrayal, and a deeply entrenched system of pharmaceutical abuse among Keaton's students. This is probably not a first-round pick, but remains nonetheless an engaging title with thoughtful characters. It's sure to find an audience among readers who enjoyed Cecily von Ziegesar's "Gossip Girl" series (Little, Brown) and its ilk. Though this is not an "issue novel," the plot does revolve around extensive drug use and teen sex, although the discussion is never explicit.-Anna Berger, formerly Literature Consultant, Piper City, IL

      Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

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Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:640
  • Text Difficulty:2-3

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