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Book Review of Shock Point

Shock Point
thunderweasel avatar reviewed on + 147 more book reviews


Let's see - three of your classmates commit suicide, and it's all because of an experimental drug your therapist step-father has administered to them. And they call YOU the crazy one. Yeah, that's basically Shock Point in a nutshell.

In a much bigger nutshell, Cassie Streng's mother marries adolescence therapist Rick following her divorce from Cassie's biological father. Soon enough, mother Jackie is showing a baby bump. And Cassie, in response to the family's relocation and her newly-appointed step-father, shows signs of typical teen angst and rebellion. Her step-father believes he has an answer: Socom, an experimental drug that, with a study of over 350 people, proved to help curb the teenage attitude and obtain obedience and patience.

However, when Cassie must use Rick's office computer for her non-existent history paper due the following day, she comes across Rick's patient files - including three of her former classmates who had committed suicide. And every one of their files showed that they had been administrated the Socom injection by Rick.

Without anyone to run to, Cassie hits up assistance from classmate Thatcher, a grubby-haired, pierced geek with a really nice Mac computer. With only pictures of the discovered files as proof, Thatcher and Cassie hatch a plan to put the story in a reporter's hands for further investigation. But Rick remains one step ahead, hiding all evidence from her and eventually sending her to Peaceful Cove, a correctional "school" in Mexico for troubled teens. What Cassie's mother - or for that matter, anyone, except Rick - doesn't know is that it's actually a prison with barred windows, unusually strict guidelines and harsh consequential punishment. With Cassie stuck on the other side of the border, how many people will die from Socom before she or anyone else can reveal the truth?

Henry is straight-forward in her writing, sometimes to her disadvantage. Her straight-to-the-point approach occasionally lacks emotional elaboration, which makes it seem like you're just watching a poorly-acted play. However, certain points of the book are emotionally charged in all the right ways, providing an impactful pain that seems as real as Cassie's.

Henry's concentration on Cassie leaves foe Rick without much of a profile, and the end can leave the reader questioning his motives. But Cassie's struggle to survive Mexico is worth reading every word and feeling every shock point.