Before My Eyes

November 11, 2013
Bock returns to the Long Island setting of her critically acclaimed first book for teens, LIE, as the lives of three young people intersect over a weekend. Claire’s mother has had a stroke and is in rehab, upending her family. Barkley, 21, has serious psychological problems, has bought a gun, and is sending threats to a state senator. Max’s father is that senator, and Max is having a miserable summer between his father’s reelection campaign and his own nascent addiction to painkillers. Bock’s story unfolds as an hour-by-hour account of the Labor Day weekend before Claire and Max’s senior year, told in three alternating points of view. Bock’s prose is fluid and resonant, and her characters fully realistic, although the clipped narration they share makes their voices sound overly similar. A sense of dread and the threat of violence hang over this gripping novel (the book opens with Barkley pulling out a gun at a campaign event for Max’s father), as do the failings of parents, friends, and society. Ages 14–up. Agent: Rachel Sussman, Chalberg & Sussman.

December 15, 2013
The final moments before a disturbed young man sprays bullets into a crowd at a political event form the opening of this grim but intelligent novel. The worlds of three teens overlap at the end of a summer that has brought unwelcome changes into their respective lives. Max, the privileged but miserable son of a state senator, meets and can't get out of his mind a thoughtful, grieving young woman named Claire, whose beloved mom is hospitalized following a stroke. At the same time, Max's co-worker Barkley, who writes crazed political missives to Max's father, has begun to hear a voice directing his actions and has also spotted and become obsessed with Claire. Alternating narratives in the first person by each of the three at times seem to go on a bit too long, given that it's clear from the beginning what the outcome will be. Claire is the most likable, and readers will appreciate her lack of cookie-cutter edges, both in her physical description and in her emotional ups and downs as she takes care of her younger sister largely on her own. Max is less sympathetic, at times frustratingly self-absorbed, but is also clearly struggling. And Barkley, adrift in an increasingly violent storm of mental illness, is deeply troubling. Gripping, disturbing and nuanced. (Fiction. 14 & up)

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February 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-The summer before his senior year, Max, 17, is disillusioned with his New York state senator father and ambitious mother. He has grown tired of and dissatisfied with his planned-out life and doesn't quite know what his next step should be. He works at the Snack Shack at a Long Island beach, where he is surrounded by a motley crew, including his strange coworker Barkley. Max just wants the summer to be over. Seventeen-year-old Claire has her own set of problems and has had to grow up quickly. Her mother had a stroke, leaving Claire to keep the house, cook, watch over her younger sister, and share money woes with her father. All she wants is to be understood. This summer, Barkley, 21, has reached his limit and gives in to his darker nature and the voices he hears in his head. Over a Labor Day weekend, Claire's, Max's, and Barkley's lives come together. The three are forever changed when Barkley brings a gun to a political event. The first-person narrators speak with unique voices, and their tales entwine to create a compelling story. Bock has crafted a suspenseful and intense novel that is sure to keep readers turning the pages.-Elizabeth Jakubowski, formerly at Watervliet Public Library, NY

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2014
Grades 9-12 Bock (Lie, 2011) returns to Long Island for this moody, dread-filled microdrama that resists easy classification. In a way, it's an almostlove triangle: Claire, 16, is processing guilt connected to her mother's recent stroke; she meets Max, a state senator's shiftless son with a burgeoning addiction to pain pills. Max buys these pills from 21-year-old coworker Barkley, who is losing touch with reality in his secret obsession with Claire. This tale is told from the three points of view, each one suitably different but sharing Bock's polished second-by-second prosethick paragraphs filled with short sentences that possess the quality of flash photography or stage directions: The winds pick up. The trees rustle. I didn't expect to find myself here. I really didn't. We know from the prologue that the story concludes with a shooting at a political event; the book, then, concerns itself less with plotlittle about the story will surpriseand instead impresses with a series of elegantly conceived scenes of character building. The right readers will find themselves lost in the strange spell.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)