Adrenaline Crush

September 8, 2014
In a novel about taking risks, Crompton (The Real Proms Queens of Westfield High) follows a teen's emotional journey as she strives to regain the courage she's lost after a traumatic accident. Whether 17-year-old Dyna is biking, rock-climbing or swimming at the local quarry, she has the reputation of being a daredevilâuntil a near-fatal fall leaves her with a shattered ankle and terror of getting hurt. Now Dyna clings to things that are safe, including an easy relationship with the protective boy who saved her life (whom she initially describes as "Mr. Serious-bordering-on-lame"). The last thing Dyna wants to do is enter the intense therapeutic program that her mother insists she attend, but it is there, interacting with other scarred victims, that Dyna begins to confront her fears. Dyna's changing sensibility, frustrations, and renewed self-awareness are believable, but situations, themes, and the cast of unconventional characters (particularly Dyna's liberal-minded tattoo-artist father) are a bit too self-consciously drawn. Readers are left with a mixed message about the lengths a person should go to feel a thrill. Ages 12âup. Agent: Ammi-Joan Paquette, Erin Murphy Literary Agency.

August 15, 2014
Raised by her tattoo- and motorcycle-loving parents to take risks, Dyna injures herself in an accident and finds herself emotionally changed. The opening scene sees Dyna racing through the woods on her mountain bike, speeding across a bridge and kissing the first boy she sees. Her final step, however, is a miscalculation; Dyna shatters her ankle, and the boy, Jay, takes her to the hospital. After the accident, Dyna plays it safe, watching TV at home and hanging out with Jay, who quickly becomes her boyfriend. Her mother, equally thrown (readers never learn how she managed to keep her risk-taking attitude through Dyna's older brother's many accidents), enrolls Dyna in a rehab group at the Ulysses Inner Outer Healing Center. There, Dyna meets Pierce, a young veteran who lost a leg saving another soldier and whose intensity and good looks somewhat heavy-handedly encourage Dyna to remember who she is. Never meaningfully addressed here is the dissonance between Dyna's parents' encouragement of risk and their sometimes-extreme overprotectiveness. Dyna's father's open hostility toward her boyfriend and her mother's insistence that Jay promise to take care of Dyna seem oddly out of step with their apparent free-spiritedness. Sometimes inspiring, sometimes overdone. (Fiction. 12-18)

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July 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-Dyna is a young daredevil and outdoor challenge junkie who loves nothing more than reveling in the mountains and forests of her mid-Hudson Valley home. The teen comes by her thrill-seeking naturally from tattooed and free-spirited parents and an older brother whose addiction is skydiving. A fast and flirty bike ride with a guy from school turns dangerous: Her impromptu cliff climb leads to a desperate fall into a shallow part of the swimming hole-and a splintering open break on her ankle. Doctors warn that it may not ever be right again. Jay, then just an afternoon's diversion, was there to get her help, maybe even save her life, and the two become romantically involved as Dyna attempts to recover. He is a little tame for wild-girl Dyna, but the chastened and more subdued daredevil likes him just fine. Her mom forces Dyna to sessions at a wellness center for physical and mental therapy, and that brings Pierce into the picture. A young injured veteran, who lost his leg in the course of saving another soldier overseas, Pierce assists Dyna's therapy group and challenges her assumptions about where her life will go next. Among the other wounded souls trying to put their lives back together, Dyna gains a new kind of strength. Thoughtful teens will enjoy this satisfying read with well-crafted characters and a nice sense of place.-Suzanne Gordon, Lanier High School, Sugar Hill, GA

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