HEAD CASE

“I’m a head,” declares 17-year-old Frank Marder, now a quadriplegic after downing five beers and getting behind the wheel. His reckless actions also killed two people, including his girlfriend. A judge thinks justice has been served, but on a public website, the community voices its outrage that Frank “walked away” free—except for one anonymous poster. Frank feels “frozen in time and space” until he’s asked to speak at local high schools about preventing spinal-cord injuries. “There are no fairy-tale endings, Frank,” his occupational therapist reminds him, yet as the teen faces the world again, his own culpability and the true identity of Anonymous, he finds hope and joy in the long, difficult road ahead of him. Although not as compelling as Terry Trueman’s Stuck in Neutral (2000), Aronson’s raw first novel delves into the emotions, mobility, daily functions (e.g., eating, talking on a phone and using a computer) and even the pleasures and sex of quadriplegics. Above all, it asks us to consider how we value individuals with disabilities. (Fiction. YA)