Quad

I just finished a really good book. I started Quad by C.G. Watson this morning at around 10 a.m. and just finished it now at 4 p.m. This is the kind of book you want to read in one go because the story just carries you along, the plotlines just keep getting more and more entwined and the stakes keeping go up and up and you must know what happens next!

The stakes actually start pretty high with this book. It opens in the quad of Muir High School where Ranger (a freak) is starting his day, putting up with the bullying of some jocks or "juicers" as Ranger calls them, when a series of pops slowly gets his attention. As the popping noises come nearer and a flood of panicked students start running, the truth sinks in: someone is shooting up the school. Ranger gets the hated jocks and a handful of other kids into the school's store. They barricade themselves in, unsure of who is shooting or why. The next chapter is the first in a series of flashbacks to a few weeks before the shooting. Clique by clique, we see the slow unwinding of events that has led each student to this moment. Told in third person, Quad tells the interconnected stories of the cheerleader sluts, the drama queens, the choir boys, the jocks, the techs, the freaks, and the preps--and shows that each group is capable of its own patented cruelty. Even the techies who are bent on ekeing out justice unleash a terrible cruelty of their own. As the book returns to short chapters that take place in the quad, it becomes increasingly clear that several kids could potentially be the shooter, each with a fairly compelling motive for venegeance.


Who is the shooter in the quad?