From the Back Cover:
Good-girl Kat knew drinking alcohol at school would have serious consequences. But to protect her friend from being expelled, Kat lands herself a term’s worth of detentions.
Inside the detention room, she meets a strange boy who obsessively draws dark pictures and covers his head with a grey hoodie. Little does she know, the hoodie hides a dark past …
An unlikely friendship forms between Kat and the boy in the hoodie. When she discovers a sinister truth he’s been hiding, she somehow feels compelled to help him—but at what cost? And how much is she willing to risk in order to keep him safe?
The Boy in the Hoodie is a real, unforgettable story about past scars and how the ones we love can sometimes heal them.
Amanda’s Review:
The Boy in the Hoodie surprised me–in a good way. I am an adult, and yet I identified with these high-school aged characters. The pressure of peers from those days came back to me all too easily and it was just like being there all over again. I had trouble putting this novel down and kept turning the pages well into the night.
This story brought to life how teenagers can see things far differently from the grownups, I guess because they don’t necessarily see the big picture. Then misunderstandings can happen, and they can put themselves at risk because of their youthful inexperience. And sometimes they have experienced more heartache then they were ever meant to.
The Boy in the Hoodie made me think about these things as I watched the relationships between Kat and her parents, her school friends and the hoodie boy change and grow. My takeaway is that I want to be someone that my kids can be open with, someone they can trust to listen and really hear their struggles.
A fantastic debut novel from Catriona McKeown.
About the Author:
Catriona spends her days hanging out with teenagers in a middle school in Southern Queensland, where she works to support and advocate for young people with special needs.
Her love of writing character-driven stories reflects her passion to see all young people reach their full God-given potential, and to see the world they live in become a better place.
Catriona has published online a number of short stories, and her first YA novel, The Boy in the Hoodie won the CALEB award for unpublished fiction in 2016. Catriona was also runner-up for the overall CALBEB prize that year.
Go here for more information about Catriona McKeown.
Romancing The Rock 