Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | YA Fic Johnson, J. 2003 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Why had the men chosen him? Savagely violated by two strangers, sixteen-year-old Grady West retreats into silence. Some hells just can't be shared. Searing and powerful, "Target" shows that people can go through unspeakable things and emerge whole-- and sometimes your friends can save you. Another "provocative tale" ("Booklist") by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson, author of "The Parallel Universe of Liars."
Author Notes
Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson, a library technician, lives in Rockville, Maryland. Her other books include The Parallel Universe of Liars and A Fast and Brutal Wing.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Grady, 16, takes a dark and quiet road home after a carefree night with a date. At six-foot-three, he is more surprised than frightened when he is tackled to the ground by two thugs. They beat, gag, and bind him, and, later, rape him. This is a story of recovery; of coexisting with loving parents who are helpless to patch up the pieces; of beginning a different high school to avoid old friends with curious glances. In his new school, Grady is instantly befriended by Jess, a fast-talking black student with an abundance of wit and attitude. Grady, a skin-and-bones shell without appetite, barely a voice, and hardly enough energy to keep on going, is no match for Jess's constant verbal diatribes. Grady, Jess, and another student, Pearl, become an unlikely trio when they are partnered for an art class project. As Grady battles increasing psychological trauma from graphic recall of the rape, Jess and Pearl rally to his side. Riddled with self-blame for not fighting off his attackers, Grady becomes the target of his own paranoia and humiliation. Confusion over his battered sexuality plagues him relentlessly. Jess's prying and funny banter keep tugging him back, while Pearl's quiet acceptance makes him feel a little safer, a little warmer. There are no easy solutions or quick fixes here-but there are sound friendships from credible characters offering a kid a reason to hang on. Miraculously, Jess even spills a bit of wry humor onto Grady's fragile soul.-Alison Follos, North Country School, Lake Placid, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Grady West, 16, is recovering from a vicious attack in which two men pulled him into a van, then beat and raped him. According to PW, "This painful, explicit tale is as difficult to read as it is worthwhile." Ages 14-up. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Grady is repeating eleventh grade, in a new school, with a secret: he was raped. Related rather claustrophobically from Grady's point of view, the book details his fear and shame and eventual coming-to-terms with the assault. With a tendency toward overexplanation and studied saltiness, the book is too overtly purposive to bring the characters to life, but the dramatic situation will attract readers. From HORN BOOK Spring 2004, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Kidnapped and raped repeatedly, Grady survives, but the emotional cost is huge. His parents accept his wish to change schools and the need to stay away from his old friends. The graphic nature of the rape by the two men is never far from the reader as it's never far from Grady's mind. In a new school he strives to be anonymous. But starting with motor-mouth Jess bugging him and a note from the school paper, it becomes apparent that vanishing in senior year is going to be tough, especially with a group art project. Anorexic, practically never speaking and trying to keep all emotion from his face, Grady hoards his secret. The contrast between what is going on in his head and the outer world keeps readers on tenterhooks, just as Grady never knows when some slight comment will bring his horrible memories to the fore. He's unsure if he is a victim or an accessory, gay or straight, and Johnson carefully explores Grady's suffering while having the angry homophobe, fat girl, and gossipy insider emerge in their own right. Painful and riveting. (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gr. 10-12. Since being savagely raped and assaulted by two men, 16-year-old Grady West has lived an exercise in after the night of instead of life: nothing means what it used to. Terrified that his friends will discover what has happened, Grady enrolls at a new school on the other side of the county, where he meets three outsider classmates--Jess, Fred, and Pearl--who will, in various idiosyncratic ways, help him begin a process of healing. He also meets a fourth, Gwendolyn, a wannabe investigative reporter for the school newspaper, who senses that Grady has a secret, which she is determined to expose. It doesn't take keen powers of observation to deduce that Grady is troubled: rendered nearly catatonic by the experience, he remains, even after a number of months, practically speechless and burdened by a host of odd behaviors. In fact, it's hard to believe that, in a world outside the pages of a novel, Grady could really function in a public school. That's just one of the problems with this powerful and provocative but also flawed novel. The subject is certainly important and a valid one for a young adult novel: boys are raped, and the searing, life-changing situation demands attention. Andohnson has created in Grady a highly sympathetic character whose agonies are plausibly rendered in third-person voice. She also writes well, despite an annoyingly heavy-handed use of birds as a metaphor, and she has an obvious talent for pacing and building suspense. It's difficult, however, to account for the vividly detailed descriptions of the attack. Was it necessary to describe the particulars of Grady's rape in such excruciating explicitness? There's also Grady's intense concern over his not fighting back, which seems purposefully set up so he can agonize over whether or not he might be gay--and therefore a target. ohnson acknowledges, late in the book, that, as with rapes of women, most such attacks are exercises in power and domination, not sexually motivated, but her message is confusing. Grady is made to have flashbacks of being sexually molested as a child by the man next door, and it is Fred, the (token?) gay boy in his class, whom Grady finally turns to for help. By the end Grady seems to be developing tender feelings for Pearl, a girl who has problems of her own, but the relationship between rape and sexual orientation that is introduced in the story remains blurred. And what about Gwendolyn andess? Gwendolyn is a caricature antagonist. Give her a mustache, and she would be Snidley Whiplash from the Dudley Doright cartoons. African Americaness is more complex. He's intended as the chief architect of Grady's salvation, but he seems almost as unsympathetic as Gwen: he's a homophobe, a misogynist, and, frankly, something of a racist. That he also happens to be a secret poet is, presumably, meant to show that beneath the angry-young-man demeanor, he's really a sensitive kid. So, here are the questions that remain for readers. What's the relationship between Grady's assault and homosexuality? Which characters deserve the reader's sympathy? And are these characters plausible agents of his recovery? Although these are large--and troubling--questions, some readers will be swept away by the intensity of the book and care enough about Grady to overlook them. Others, alas, . . . won't. --Michael Cart Copyright 2003 Booklist