BookChick Recommends TWISTED by Laurie Halse Anderson
It’s impossible to talk about TWISTED by Laurie Halse Anderson without addressing this — it’s written by a woman and it’s told by an 18-year-old boy. OK, fine. So JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter and even though the story is told in third person, her main character is a boy. But Tyler Miller, the narrator in this story, is ALL BOY. We’re talking raging hormones and long showers and girl lust and anger and muscles. The story surely stands on its own, but it also rises above simply because of that difficult feat — TWISTED100% feels like a book told from a teenage boy. That boy has been a dork and a troublemaker until one summer when he, how shall we say, blooms! He’s now over six feet, he’s ripped and he’s in love with the hottest girl in school. Oh, and she just might like him too…
Until one night when something happens. Only nothing happens. But because Tyler’s got a rep as a troublemaker everyone thinks he did something wrong.
The novel is true to its title and with brutal honesty and vivid imagery (Tyler imagines his dad with talons), Laurie Halse Anderson — a master of the teen lit genre — takes us inside a twisted family and a twisted tale.
