msjamgochian'sinfinitebooklist

On a hot summer night in a small country town, local teen pariah Jasper Jones raps on book nerd-sensitive Charlie Bucktin's window, and leads him to a discovery that will change both of their lives. Laura Wishart, daughter of the town shire, and friend to Charlie, is found hung from a tree where she and Jasper used to meet in secret. Knowing that Jasper will be suspected of the murder, the boys hide her body in the river, and that is where the trouble, and their relationship, truly begins. As the summer progresses and Laura's disappearance is investigated, Charlie is faced with a host of hard truths: his parents' marriage isn't what it seems to be, his best friend Jeffrey Lu suffers at the hands of racists, and the local tendency to turn the other way rather than stand up for what is right has tragic results. The bitterness is balanced by the sweetness of Charlie's relationship with Laura's little sister Eliza; Mr. Silvey masterfully depicts the magic of first ...

It's the summer before his senior year, and Cullen Witter is bored to death in a painfully dull Arkansas town. Things get exciting when a Lazarus Woodpecker, supposedly extinct, is spotted in a copse of trees near town. The buzz of this discovery serves as the back drop for two deaths (a close cousin overdoses, a young man jumps to his death) and the inexplicable disappearance of Cullen's beloved younger brother, Gabriel. As Cullen and his parents move through the early phases of grief, alternating between dispair and hope, Benton Sage, a young missionary in Africa, has a crisis of faith, and his suicide is the catalyst that spurs his college roommate into a series of actions that bring the story back to Gabriel's disappearance. At first, it is hard to imagine the two stories intersecting, but JW brings all the disparate pieces together in a satisfying and surprising ending. Cullen is a loveable character with a refined sense of humor, and readers who enjoy complex male lea...