Monster by Walter Dean Myers

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Monster
by Walter Dean Myers
(Audio)

I've seen this book many times while looking at the FCPS-LIST books at my local library (the books recommended by the local school system), but I'd never considered reading it until it appeared on Amazon's top 10 list of YA books. I'd really like to read all the books on this list. And when I found out this was only 2 discs long, I knew it would be an easy one to read.

I was wrong. Oh, it was easy to listen to, certainly. But it was an emotional roller coaster the whole way through. It's a full cast recording, which works really nicely because the whole book is set up as a screenplay, because making movies is something that the main character enjoys. He's a young high schooler on trial for murder one. Basically, he is sitting and waiting as the future of his life is decided for him, while outside the trail he has to deal with the realities of being in prison.

We sit there with Steve for the duration of the trial, getting the little bits of evidence here and there. I thought we got enough evidence in order to determine his innocense, but even so, we can only hope the jury sees it that way.

I was fascinated with all the nuances of the story, and the fact that innocense has nothing to do with a verdict. There were so many complexities, so many factors. And all the little bits of what it's like to go through that and to suffer through prison, especially when you're just a teenaged boy, are terrible. The end of the book was especially chilling. The script/movie technique worked well, but the ending gave me chills and made me feel sick.

I also really enjoyed the introduction at the beginning with the author explaining how he came to write the story--the sorts of people he talked to, the trials he observed, and the realization that there's a very fine line between committing a crime and committing a murder... and that all it takes is just to make a mistake and not get away with something once... it's almost an eventuality for some people. But it doesn't have to be that way for everyone.