The Gardener (YA)

The Gardener. S.A. Bodeen. 2010. May 2010. Feiwel & Friends. 240 pages.

The videotape of my father was never meant to be seen by me, and were it not for a chow mix ripping apart half my face, the man might have remained only a mysterious void. But it was that day when I was five, that day of growls and blood and pain and screams, when I first heard my father's voice.

Mason is a sophomore who loves biology, loves science. And he's hoping that he'll be able to get a scholarship from TroDyn--when the time comes--so he can go to the college. True, he'd have to commit to working in TroDyn's labs for five years. But what could be so awful about that? But his mom has other ideas for her son. And she believes strongly that TroDyn is no place for her son to be. Ever. Ever. Ever.

It is when he goes to confront his mom about something--he found an ID card when he was snooping through his mom's filing cabinet--that the story really begins. He sneaks into her workplace. He confronts her. She stalls. Then he meets the girl. The girl that will bring so-many-complications to his life. But the girl he couldn't forget in a hundred years.

All the things that I liked most about this one are things that I think you should discover on your own. The fewer spoilers you know, the more you'll enjoy this one.

I liked this one. It's dark. It's creepy. It's compelling.

The Compound is another novel by S.A. Bodeen.


© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews