Book Review: rash by Pete Hautman (YA)
Submitted by The Thin Red Line
First off, a tip of the hat to Becky over at Becky’s Book Reviews for bringing this one to my attention. Pete Hatman’s rash was first published in 2006, though the edition I got from the library is a 2008 trade paperback. The book is set in the year 2074 in the United Safer States of America. French fries are illegal. Football has been banned. And a very nanny-state kind of government has passed all sorts of laws to protect and keep Americans safe. Over twenty perecent of the population is in jails, which have become factories. And they need to keep arresting people, for things like losing their temper and “verbally assaulting” people, because the workers in prison factories are the only ones who work at all anymore.
Bo Martensen is a typical teen ager. He is on the track team at school (where runners are bogged down in tons of safety equiptment and run only on a new-fangled rubber-like surface to keep everyone always injury free) and has a crush on a girl. In a very typical and believable scene, Bo takes offense at another boy’s going out with a girl he thought of as his girlfriend and lashes out and says some really mean things. Whereupon he is sentenced to three years of hard labor at a McDonald’s factory in the Canadian tundra, where he is to work 16 hours a day making frozen pizzas.
Hautman is a wonderful writer and does a remarkable job of creating a very believable teen protagonist in a story which I believe brilliantly expresses the folly of those, whom I believe it was Ben Franklin once remarked, “would give up some liberty in order to obtain a bit of temporary safety and thus deserve neither liberty nor safety.” I thoroughly enjoyed reading this excellent Young Adult novel and suspect that you will too if you give it a chance. rash by Pete Hautman– Highly Recommended. Buy now $8.95
And a final note today, congratulations to Kevin Goodman who won the copy of Kyle Mills’ Lords of Corruption in last week’s contest. I have gotten in touch with Kevin and will be mailing the book to him on Tuesday. My thanks to all who participated.
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