Acceleration

[BookReviewEditor]

Acceleration
Graham McNamee
Rating: 3 (1-4, with 4 being the best) I would recommend this book to high school males because of the word choice, the plot, and because of the themes of the book. The book is about Duncan, a traumatized 17 year old boy, who lives in modern Toronto. Six months before Duncan starts his story, he is swimming in a lake when he heard a girl screaming. He thought it was typical for a girl to scream, so he paid no attention to her. Then he saw people running in to the water and he realized what was happening... the girl was drowning! Duncan swam over to the girl, but he just couldn't reach. The girl died and now Duncan, traumatized, can’t go near the water. Right now Duncan is working in the Toronto Subway Lost and Found, or as Duncan calls it, the tomb. He is monitored by Jacob, a former subway conductor. Duncan sits in the back of the lost and found on his lawn chair and reads books people left behind on the subway. One day he picks up a white leather book that looks like a diary. Inside that book Duncan reads about a man who drowns rats, starts fires, and is planning to kill three women. So, Duncan consults his friend Vinny, a crippled genius. They both do research on a murder’s acceleration, how a criminal evolves into a killer. The steps are: first they kill small animals, then they start fires, and finally they commit murder. Could this diary belong to a murderer? The only weakness of Acceleration was that the author added quite a few minor characters that did not help the story in any way. I thought the author did a good job explaining Duncan and Vinny's actions. The author also used good word choice in describing the dialog of inner city teens- it was very descriptive and true to life. Joseph Colorado Springs,