The Red Sheet

Title:  The Red Sheet

Author:  Mia Kerick

Publisher:  Dreamspinner Press

Length:  190 pages

Rating:  A List

Up All Night Satisfaction

Blurb:  A Harmony Ink Press Young Adult Title

One October morning, high school junior Bryan Dennison wakes up a different person—helpful, generous, and chivalrous—a person whose new admirable qualities he doesn’t recognize. Stranger still is the urge to tie a red sheet around his neck like a cape.

Bryan soon realizes this compulsion to wear a red cape is accompanied by more unusual behavior. He can’t hold back from retrieving kittens from tall trees, helping little old ladies cross busy streets, and defending innocence anywhere he finds it.

Shockingly, at school, he realizes he used to be a bully. He’s attracted to the former victim of his bullying, Scott Beckett, though he has no memory of Scott from before “the change.” Where he’d been lazy in academics, overly aggressive in sports, and socially insecure, he’s a new person. And although he can recall behaving egotistically, he cannot remember his motivations.

Everyone, from his mother to his teachers to his “superjock” former pals, is shocked by his dramatic transformation. However, Scott Beckett is not impressed by Bryan’s newfound virtue. And convincing Scott he’s genuinely changed and improved, hopefully gaining Scott’s trust and maybe even his love, becomes Bryan’s obsession.

With a foreword by C. Kennedy

 

Review:  When you look at this site you will see that some of the ladies here read and love YA. I’m not usually one of them. There are several reasons for that, so when Nina asked if I wanted to read The Red Sheet, I waffled. I don’t usually care for YA but I’m a huge Mia Kerick fan so what was I going to do? I agreed. Obviously.

Thank goodness, because this book was brilliant.

Bryan Dennison or Denny was a bully. And then one day he woke up and he is a different young man . Something happened. I think what I loved the most about Denny is how he was two people at once. He was this new person rising up, figuring himself out, but he also had to see who he had been before, to truly be able to change.

And it wasn’t a nice look back.

But he took it all in, he owned it, let it evolve him. And we get to see all of these changes as we absorb who he was, it was a struggle to forgive him and let him become this new man. To believe that someone so cruel could become a hero.  And that was as a reader…for Denny he had to push back and he had to right his wrongs, learn true repentance, acceptance and love.

And then there is Scott. Oh, beautiful Scott, who was the victim in all of this. He is one of the strongest characters I have ever read. He was amazing. He stood up for himself. He demanded real change. He was exquisite.

There are so many things I want to say about this book, but 1. I don’t want to spoil it, and 2. this is a must read. I get it, you don’t like YA. I understand. As a mother of teens, YA romance freaks me the hell out. But this is more. It’s more than a YA romance. The writing is beautiful. The characters are well developed. The pace leaves you gasping for breath. There will be tears. There will be laughter. There will be a ton of change, some of it may even happen to you. It’s a book about being human, forgiveness, growth, and it made the way I look at this genre from here on out completely different.

Reviewed by Beans