Gone (review)

The son of alcoholics, his mother ostensibly on the wagon and his father institutionalized after a drunken accident left him brain-damaged, Connor lives with his aunt and feels like he's never really wanted anywhere. High-school graduation offers the hint of new possibilities, especially in his relationship with his young teacher, Ms. Timms, when it becomes clear that his crush on her is reciprocated. Soon the two are swept up into a passionate affair, a relationship Connor is determined will finally provide him with the love and belonging for which he's always yearned. Needy, deprived Connor ("He'd always been invisible, that was just a fact of his life") is credible in his conviction that romantic love will be his salvation, filling all his emptiness; the book never explicitly links his idolization of his teacher with her previously authoritative role or Connor's inadequate mothering, but that's a likely connection the book allows readers to make on their own. Ms. Timms, however, is overconveniently messed up from start to finish, suffering from drug addiction as well as judgment issues, and the flowery, romance-novel descriptions of the sexual encounters point toward a novel with a very different message about passionate attachments. Nelson's Teach Me (BCCB 9/05) therefore is a more successful and poignant look at teacher-student romance, but the exploration of Connor's hard road to finding a place in the world may still absorb readers.