Last Exit To Normal
Submitted by The Thin Red Line
A tip of the hat to Becky, over at Becky’s Book Reviews, whose December review first brought The Last Exit To Normal to my attention. An engaging Young Adult novel by Michael Harmon, Last Exit To Normal is told in the first person by Ben, a high school senior who drank and smoked pot and crashed a stolen car and got in trouble with the police, after his father one day announced that he was gay and his mother immediately moved out. As the novel opens, Ben and his father and his father’s boyfriend Edward have just moved to Rough Butte, Montana where they are to live with Edward’s mother, Bonnie Mae Ingerson.
Ben is a bitter and angry young man and is not at all pleased to be plunked down in what he considers to be the middle of nowhere. But Mrs. Ingerson is not about to put up with a lazy, skulking teenager and after a few difficult scenes manages to instill in Ben a strong work ethic which serves Ben well in the small farming community. Ben meets and begins dating a local girl and then in a bit of fortuitous timing saves the life of her uncle, who is trapped beneath a tractor following a farm accident during a storm. After several monumental fights with his father, who along with Edward is busy preparing to open a steak house restaurant in Rough Butte, Ben gets himself hired on at the uncle’s farm where he will complete his senior year of high school through a special tutoring program. I found the novel definitely engaging and by the end really cared about what would happen to Ben. The Last Exit To Normal–Recommended. Buy now $10.95
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