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Monday, May 14, 2012

Cracked, by K.M. Walton: a review by Gracey

Title: Cracked
Author: K.M. Walton
Format: hardcover
Price: $16.99

Now, this book was not a very happy book and had a pretty good ending, so I'm going to try not to spoil it for anyone.

This book consists of two main characters, one of whom is named Victor, who has been bullied by the other main character, Bull, since kindergarten.  Throughout the story, the perspectives of the chapters change between Victor and Bull.  Victor keeps talking about how much he hates Bull and just wants him to die.  Also, about his parents and how  he hates them.  While Bull, on the other hand, has some issues of his own.  His mom and dad are both alcoholics and keep stealing all of his money.  So, Bull takes out all of his anger on Victor.  But, when Victor tries to kill himself by taking some sleeping pills and ends up in the hospital, who does he find there with him?

Bull.  So they have to learn to work out their problems together.

Both of the characters grow throughout the book by somewhat learning from their own mistakes and taking responsibility.

The theme for this book, to  me, probably would be one: to not bully, and two: to not run away from your problems because sooner or later they're going to sneak up on you and kick you in the butt.

Some of the strengths of this book to me personally were probably how the perspectives kept changing and also how the problem was resolved.  One weakness I found was that it was a depressing book, but I guess I'm the one who chose to read it so I guess that's my fault.

It's hard to talk about the ending without being a spoiler but I feel this book had a decent ending just because everything seemed to somewhat work out in the end.

Rating:  4 out of 5 chocolate bars (because I ate the fifth one :)
Appropriateness:  PG-13 if it was a movie because of the language and suicide.  Also the theme would be complex for young readers.
Cover Thoughts:  Well, the cover kinda gave me the idea that it would be a sad book because there are pills on it, so I just hypothesized it being about death or something around those lines.

If you want to read this book it is possibly at your local library or at a nearby bookstore.

1 comment:

  1. You definitely allow your own voice to come through in your writing :-) Sounds like it had a good message in the end? I am glad you did not spoil it and I thought that your review was very interesting and fun to read. Great job!

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