INEXCUSABLE

Lynch has hit a homerun with this provocative, important read about Keir, a self-proclaimed “good guy” headed for college on a football scholarship. With two sisters in college, Keir lives alone with his lonely, widowed father, who treats Keir more like a buddy than a son. After Keir accidentally cripples an opponent during a football game, things really go awry, especially since his victim lets him off the hook with a letter of forgiveness. With his name cleared, his peers christen him “Killer,” a nickname that seems to give him license to do all sorts of unsavory things, such as hazing classmates, vandalizing a statue, trying cocaine and ultimately, date raping Gigi Boudakian. The underage drinking and recreational drug use is handled fairly cavalierly up until the stint with cocaine, but readers will still feel uneasy as the well-crafted sequence of Keir’s reckless behaviors crescendos toward a disastrous end. Keir’s self-delusion, irresponsibility and sense of invincibility are dangerous, sending the important message to all teens, particularly high-school heroes and their would-be victims, that some things are inexcusable. (Fiction. YA)