Another Great Book from B. Hartinger
Rating:
5 / 5
As with his first book, Geography Club, Brent Hartinger has succeeded in bringing to print another great story of young people often seen as outside the norm. The Last Chance Texaco tells the story of a young woman who has been tossed from home to home until she lands at a group home - her last chance before going to a juvenile detention facility. I highly recommend this book to both youth and adults who want an insight into the life of young people such as Lucy. The story also contains an interesting twist that came as a surprise. A very readable book.
Last Chance doesn't mean Lost Hope
Rating:
4 / 5
Life as a groupie is hard. Groupie as in a resident of a group home. They have laws unto themselves, these kids. Secrets that the adults - the counselors, the therapists, the educators - who work with them will never know. Not even there non-groupie classmates are let into their world. They wouldn't want in anyway. The groupies in Hartinger's LAST CHANCE TEXACO live with daily distrust and suspicion, if not outright hatred. The title comes from the nickname of the group home. It's their last chance before their misbehavior gets them sent off to Rabbit Island Detention Center, aka "Eat Their Young Island."Author Brent Hartinger used to work as a counselor in a group home and his depiction of the characters in this book seems very authentic to me.The main character, Lucy, is struggling to find the good in herself and her housemates. When she gets into a fight with the ultra popular superjock Nate at school, they both end up picking up trash after school, thanks to the intervention of a counselor who knows the "equal punishment" rules. What ensues is a romance you'd never expect in a million years and a crime drama with an unexpected resolution. The plot requires some suspension of disbelief in a few places, but all in all, a good book and an enjoyable read. ~ Roxyanne Young
Editorial Director, www.SmartWriters.com
an authentic voice
Rating:
5 / 5
Last Chance Texaco, by Brent Hartinger, has a lot of strengths. The one that strikes me most is the authenticity of the main character's voice. By the end of the book, I felt that I had actually met someone; I could hear her voice as I read, and I cared what happened to her. As she learns about the possibilities of life, and takes each step toward letting hope back into her thinking, I felt the opening in my own heart as well. This is an excellent book; positive without being sappy, encouraging without glossing over the work that life demands.
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