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Reviewed by:
  • The Fixes by Owen Matthews
  • Karen Coats
Matthews, Owen The Fixes. HarperTeen/HarperCollins, 2016 [528p]
Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-06-233689-7 $17.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-06-233691-0 $9.99
Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 9-12

Student of the year at his posh California high school, Eric Connelly has lived his life to this point sipping his driven father’s Kool-Aid, eschewing any relationships or distractions that would keep him from getting into law school, entering politics, and ultimately ending up in the White House. Then he meets Jordan, the obscenely rich, obscenely charming son of a film mogul. Eric is sucked into Jordan’s orbit, which includes Haley and Paige, a girl Eric dated before he decided he preferred boys. Calling themselves the SuIcIdEpAcK, the four commit increasingly violent acts of protest against the phoniness and moral failings of their wealthy community, which they film and post to their school’s private message group. Adopting the same quick-cut, detached style he used with How to Win at High School (BCCB 5/15), Matthews goes even further with the postmodern metafiction in this offering, often reminding readers that this is a story that operates under certain genre constraints, such as a love interest, a meet-cute, a hero’s journey, and a moral lesson that, he hints, is imposed by the publisher. The tone is sly and enjoyably cynical, drenched in world-weary hipster-speak and updated from Holden Caulfield with a readable narrative technique of short chapters, lists, online messages, and parenthetical asides that emphasize the disjointed surface impressions and managed public personae that cover inner longings and hidden doubts. In the end, it offers a compelling caution for smart, angry teens to beware the charismatic psychopath who may look and sound just like them.

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