There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.Įveryone believes that Salil Singh killed his girlfriend, Andrea Bell, five years ago-except Pippa Fitz-Amobi. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character.

But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.Īutumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart their mothers are still best friends. this is a remarkably preserved specimen of rebel-without-a-cause nihilism. Not to be confused with a nostalgia piece. Hinton, on her own turf, is still unbeatable, although she seems to have no more of a future, or even a present, than Rusty-James has.

Even the luridly symbolic climax-when Motorcycle Boy is shot by a vengeful cop after burglarizing a pet store to liberate the Siamese fighting fish (rumble-fish, to him)-works better than you would suppose. Hinton knows how to plunge us right into his dead-end mentality-his inability to verbalize much of anything, to come to grips with his anger about his alcoholic father and the mother who deserted him, even his distance from his own feelings.

Sliced up the side in a knife fight, smashed over the head by two muggers, barely ambulatory throughout and always headed for the next confrontation, he is far realer than he has arty right to be. Rusty-James himself is a lot easier to figure. Even then the gangs had been broken up by dope, but he couldn't help trying to live up to the rep of his older brother, Motorcycle Boy, a kid who engineers his own destruction with such detachment that his sanity can only be debated in metaphysical terms. Here Rusty-James, now just 'bumming around,' is describing events of five or six years back. At least she has the insight to build this around another kid who can't either-Rusty James, a born down-and-outer Whose self-description ('I ain't never been a particularly smart person') is an understatement. The greaser gangs are no longer where it's at, but S.

The rumble fish book