A New Book

I finished Epic, and I've spent a while thinking about why I really didn't like it.  It's an adventure story, but I didn't get the buildup of tension as I was reading it.  It seemed more like they had three different adventures that they completed.  For example, in The Knife of Never Letting Go, the kids just kept getting deeper and deeper into more and more problems and the tension built up to the end (where we are left HANGING for the second book, which I wasn't happy about, but that's another story.)  In this book, I just kept waiting to see what happened, so that I could get on to my next book.  Which I have done . . .

Gentlemen, by Michael Northrop.  I love this cover--that's what drew my attention.  It's interesting because when I was searching for an image of this book, I came upon a blog by the author of how this cover was chosen.  He's lucky the folks at Scholastic are so smart, because the final product is MUCH better than the original one.  Anyway, the premise of the book is that a high school boy from "the wrong side of the tracks" disappears and his friends begin to suspect their weird remedial English teacher.  They are reading Crime and Punishment (yea, I know that would never happen in a remedial English class) and that definitely influences their conclusions about their missing friend.  It's a unique premise, a quick read, and a good book for boys.