JUDE

Jude, a likable, well-meaning teenager, endures multiple betrayals in this absorbing thriller. After the 15-year-old’s abusive, drug-dealing father is murdered in front of him, he’s reunited with his mother, Anna, who his father had told him was dead. An ambitious, successful district attorney, she willingly takes Jude in but has no time for him. Lonely and struggling academically, Jude hopes to make friends by introducing a popular fellow student to a drug dealer from his old, poor neighborhood. When the student overdoses, Jude’s life starts taking insidious twists and turns that lead him to prison and later to a dark, surprising search for justice. Although Jude is the only character fully developed here, his generous nature and longing for a family will win readers’ sympathy, as they grow increasingly outraged at the villainous acts of those around him. (Fiction. YA)