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The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker A Novel Kat Spears Books

Download As PDF : The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker A Novel Kat Spears Books

The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker A Novel Kat Spears Books

When reading The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker you have to keep in mind there are oh so many ways to "kill" someone--ways that aren't on the list of Ten Commandments. You can kill them with kindness, smother them with love, not to mention just flat out ruin their life...or of course you could just go ahead and mow right on through that sixth Commandment and get the deed done up big. All of these are on the plate of Luke Grayson our protagonist who, after a series mishaps and misdeeds, ends up caught between a rock of his own making and a hard place that isn't. In an ideal world, Luke and Grant would never have met, but they do, and the subsequent events are gut-wrenching, laughable and everything in between.

Against a Tennessee backdrop infused with southern drawl and religion, we meet a host of folks seemingly unencumbered by the need to find out the truth or even necessarily to tell it. Or maybe they are just telling the truth as they see it. As Luke himself declared: "The truth? The truth didn’t matter. It was what everyone believed that mattered." The real truth is you can decide for yourself who really killed Grant Parker.


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The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker A Novel Kat Spears Books Reviews

Being bullied is hard. Standing up to bullies is harder. But what about suddenly being in the same position of power as the bully? How does one wield that? As Luke finds out, that’s probably the hardest for him.

I am so conflicted about my ratings (kept toggling between 3 and 3.5). I loved the whole idea behind this book – being on both sides of bullying and how one can get weak when it comes to making the hard choices when everything is suddenly going hunky-dory for you. I rarely read books from the POV of a male teenager. So, this was something different and a change from reading about all the high school pressures faced by teenage girls.

Kat Spears does a very good job of showing it from a guy’s perspective. I really empathized with Luke’s situation – a city kid used to the anonymity provided by Washington – as he ends up in a small town where he sticks out and is soon known to everyone. Right from his flashy T-Shirts and lack of interest in hunting; to his agnostic beliefs, he just feels at odds with everything and everyone in Ashland. The only people who sort of seem to get him are Delilah, one of his classmates and the local police chief’s daughter and Roger – a garage owner who offers Luke a part-time job. The isolation, embarrassment and dreading over facing school every morning, and then avoiding people and situations amidst all of this – all those feelings were just so spot-on.

The first half of the book is really good and I totally got and understood everything Luke was going through. But, it was after the “freak accident” that I just began to feel disconnected with him. Luke’s account went from feeling personal to ..well.. me feeling like an outside spectator to the entire in-his-head ordeal. Sure, he is still saying things like him feeling bad about his former friends being bullied and him not doing anything about it or, him feeling uneasy about alienating Delilah and Roger – but it just didn’t feel forceful or honest enough. While I loved that Spears made him a sort of anti-hero and not-so-perfect or likeable teenage protagonist, I just couldn’t understand what I should make of his “introspection” later on. It felt more like a matter of convenience for him – as if he changed only because he wanted people like Delilah and others not to be angry with him anymore; and because the other “cool kids” just bored the hell out of him. Oh, there was also this slight issue of Grant Parker’s former girlfriend (and his current girlfriend) nagging him daily to change him and turn him into some kind of suave social butterfly. So, it basically felt like Luke changed back to his previous self only because he realized it is too hard to don the mantle of Grant Parker’s social self – and not because Luke felt like repenting.

I also felt there were too many secondary characters and none of them made any kind of lasting impression. Those who could have – such as Delilah and Roger – were given sort-of background facts about their earlier life; so I just felt they were given a raw deal when they were ignored in later part of the book. People closer to home – such as Luke’s dad and step-mom were written as weird caricatures of religious people.

This book was a pretty fast and easy read. I liked the theme of the book and Spears’ approach of keeping a lot of the storytelling simple. But, I just felt this “simplicity” ended up being more of a weakness in the later part of the book.

(Won this book via Goodreads giveaway. Review first posted on bookmyopia/wordpress)
Ms. Spears has such a convincing young-adult voice that the pains and joys of teenage life come alive in "The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker." Between fabulous characterizations and a compelling story, this book soars, never letting us forget the bittersweet time that is high school.
Awesome. Just wonderful. I love this author. Will edit my review and include more details once I get more time.
OH! WOW! What a victim Luke Grayson is!! Totally in a world he doesn't get nor really wants to understand.
The characters are well developed reacting to one stressful situation after another. For this reason the action moves quickly and is surprising.
Luke Grayson, one of the main characters Spears has created, is not my favorite. He is so totally acted upon, and his only response is maybe the situation I am currently placed in will work if I behave this way.
I did see one correction grammatically on page 73. "You did that in purpose....." instead of on purpose.
My favorite character is still SWAY from Kat's first novel, and I am looking forward to reading about the next interesting and never boring characters to follow.
When reading The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker you have to keep in mind there are oh so many ways to "kill" someone--ways that aren't on the list of Ten Commandments. You can kill them with kindness, smother them with love, not to mention just flat out ruin their life...or of course you could just go ahead and mow right on through that sixth Commandment and get the deed done up big. All of these are on the plate of Luke Grayson our protagonist who, after a series mishaps and misdeeds, ends up caught between a rock of his own making and a hard place that isn't. In an ideal world, Luke and Grant would never have met, but they do, and the subsequent events are gut-wrenching, laughable and everything in between.

Against a Tennessee backdrop infused with southern drawl and religion, we meet a host of folks seemingly unencumbered by the need to find out the truth or even necessarily to tell it. Or maybe they are just telling the truth as they see it. As Luke himself declared "The truth? The truth didn’t matter. It was what everyone believed that mattered." The real truth is you can decide for yourself who really killed Grant Parker.