CALLING HOME

A disturbing story about a teen-ager who makes a mistake and pays for it with his sanity. Peter's schoolwork and self-respect have declined as his alcohol dependency has grown. When best friend Mead drops a bottle they're sharing, Peter lashes out—and kills him. Subsequently, Peter denies knowledge of Mead's whereabouts but makes reassuring phone calls to Mead's parents in a disguised voice, barely managing to hide his frantic self-loathing and his belief that Mead's dead personality is taking him over. Except for Peter's lively, talented friend Lani, the characters here are hard to like: Peter's divorced parents manipulate him mercilessly; reckless friend Angela does her best to keep him drunk and sexually frustrated. The novel ends with a string of isolated, often barely relevant, episodes while Peter confesses, spends time in therapy, returns home believing himself cured of his guilt—and then wakes up one night feeling Mead within him once again. Cadnum grants Peter a spark of hope at the end; readers will still feel weighed down by the heavy atmosphere and events. (Fiction. YA)