Yomoc itibaren Rahateshwar, Maharashtra 416611, India itibaren Rahateshwar, Maharashtra 416611, India

I realize that sometimes my "children" bookshelf is a bit misleading. For the most part, I actually mean young adults. I think you can deal. I couldn't decide if I liked this or not. I think it was well-written, and I liked that the author resisted a neat and happy ending. The narrator, Alex, was a character I related to, even as an adult. My major problem with the book was that I just could not stand Stacy. She's one of those characters that are meant to come in a stir stuff up. I get this. However, I found her so obnoxious and frustrating (sort of like the best friend in Born Confused that it really kept me from liking Friction completely. I will say this, though: the author does a wonderful job of teaching the lesson that words matter, that they can be powerful and destroying, and must be carefully kept. I would certainly recommend this to mature teen readers, but teachers, if you have touchy parents, get approval first. This one is fairly brutal.

Perez-Reverte's novel is a fast paced somewhat unbelievable tale of a CIA-esque superman who chases down elusive first editions of books for interested clients. Ultimately for me the plot line of this book was just to thin and characters too unbelievable to make it work well. His writing style is enjoyable if not spectacular and comes with the slight twist of phrase that still lives through the translation and helps mark this as a novel written not in the english language (spanish). I will probably try another of Perez-Reverte's novels in the future and will be curious if his plot lines improve.