Kid Konnection: Accomplice

Finn and Chloe have been best friends for years and as they approach the end of their high school careers, the pressure is on to get into a top rated college.  They’ve done everything right – they’ve made good grades and gotten involved in extracurricular activities, but suddenly, that doesn’t seem like enough.  They’ve got to figure out a way to make themselves stand out from the crowd.

When Chloe reads about Margaret Cook, a young lady who was kidnapped and later found alive, it plants an idea in her head and she comes up with what she thinks is the perfect way to make their college applications rise above the rest.  Finn agrees to help, because no one will get hurt and all she has to do is lie.  She figures that can’t be all that hard, but she finds it more difficult than she ever imagined.

Accomplice by Eireann Corrigan is a YA novel with one of the most unique plots I have read in quite a while.   The story is told from Finn’s point of view and I quickly became attached to her and drawn into the story.  Finn is a great character – she’s a good kid who wants to do right, get into a good college and be a great friend.  She quickly realizes that she’s gotten into more than she bargained for as things get more and more out of hand and she doesn’t know what to do about it or who to turn to.

This book started out as quite the page turner for me, but the pace slowed down considerably by the middle of the book.  Things sped up toward the end, though, and boy, what an ending it was!  There are a lot of layers to the story and I thought about Accomplice for days after I finished it.  There’s a lot to think about and discuss in this book, and I think it would be a great one for teens to read together because it shows how one seemingly harmless mistake can change the rest of their lives, as well as the lives of others.  It’s also a great reminder for adults to see just how much pressure today’s teens are under.

Don’t let the YA label of this book scare you away – this isn’t your typical teen book.  There’s a lot in Accomplice for adults, especially those with a young person in their lives.   This book will really make you think!

For more children’s books reviews, go to Booking Mama’s feature, Kid Konnection. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week,  leave a comment as well as a link on her site.

Review copy provided by Scholastic.  I am an Indiebound Affiliate.