Unstoppable Moses

Gr 10 Up—Seventeen-year-old Moses Hill is on his way to a court-ordered wilderness camp as a "Buddy" in charge of elementary school kids. Attempting to put his arson-tinged delinquency behind him, he is determined not to dwell on the circumstances that have also left his cousin and best friend shot by a hair-trigger police officer. Despite some truly horrific experiences, Moses is open to making friends and trying responsibility on for size—at least, enough to get his criminal record expunged. However, as a particularly tortured teen, Moses takes some very convoluted detours on his way toward forgiveness. It is clear that Smith has worked very hard to eschew the tropes of typical YA novels, but Moses's journey is a little too self-aware to be believable—albeit entertaining with the snarky footnotes and internal monologues that accompany readers from page one. Still, the author has created characters devoid of the saccharine happily ever after and they feel real, even if the plot gets a little confused about which story it's supposed to be telling.