Title: Every Inferno
Author: Johanna Parkhurst
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, LGBTQ
Link:
Book description:
Depressed.
Defiant. Possible alcoholic. These are just a few of the terms used
to describe fifteen-year-old Jacob Jasper Jones. Lately, though, JJ has a new
one to add to the list: detective. He’s been having strange dreams about the
fire that killed his parents ten years ago, and he thinks he finally has the
clue to catching the arsonist who destroyed his family.
A murder investigation isn’t the only thing the dreams trigger for JJ, though. They also lead to secret meetings with his estranged sister, an unlikely connection with a doctor who lost his daughter in the fire, and a confusing friendship with McKinley, a classmate of JJ’s who seems determined to help him solve the mystery.
All JJ wants is to shake the problems that have followed him since that fire, and he’s convinced he must catch the arsonist to do it. But as JJ struggles to find the culprit, he sees there’s more than one mystery in his life he needs to solve.
A murder investigation isn’t the only thing the dreams trigger for JJ, though. They also lead to secret meetings with his estranged sister, an unlikely connection with a doctor who lost his daughter in the fire, and a confusing friendship with McKinley, a classmate of JJ’s who seems determined to help him solve the mystery.
All JJ wants is to shake the problems that have followed him since that fire, and he’s convinced he must catch the arsonist to do it. But as JJ struggles to find the culprit, he sees there’s more than one mystery in his life he needs to solve.
Johanna Parkhurst grew up on a small dairy farm in
northern Vermont before relocating to the rocky mountains of Colorado. She
spends her days helping teenagers learn to read and write and her evenings
writing things she hopes they’ll like to read. She strives to share stories of
young adults who are as determined, passionate, and complex as the ones she
shares classrooms with.
Johanna holds degrees from Albertus Magnus College and Teachers College, Columbia University. She loves traveling, hiking, skiing, watching football, and spending time with her incredibly supportive husband.
Johanna holds degrees from Albertus Magnus College and Teachers College, Columbia University. She loves traveling, hiking, skiing, watching football, and spending time with her incredibly supportive husband.
Book excerpt:
School sure wasn’t motivating
JJ to do what his shrink told him and become more “outgoing.” As he sat through
first period—Geometry—JJ remembered why it would have been so convenient to use
his hand as an excuse to miss this class. Math sucked at the best of times, but
at this hour of the day, it almost fell into the category of pure torture. JJ
spent the period staring out the window and wondering if Dr. Ben would be
working that afternoon.
At least Creative Writing was next. That was JJ’s
favorite class; it was the only elective he’d actually looked forward to when
he was signing up for it. So far he hadn’t been disappointed. They wrote in
journals most of the time and read “model writing” or each other’s writing.
That was the only part JJ didn’t like: reading his writing aloud, or
“workshopping,” as Ms. Lyle called it. The rest of the class was supposed to
critique it for areas of improvement; JJ wasn’t having any of that.
He thought Ms. Lyle would throw him out of her class
when he first refused to show his writing to the rest of the room, but she’d
just shrugged.
“Since it’s on the syllabus for the course, I’m going
to have to dock you points,” she told him. “But if you don’t mind that, I sure
won’t take the trouble to lose my temper over it.” JJ spent the workshop
portions of the class in silence, critiquing other people’s writing in his head
but refusing to say anything. Sometimes Ms. Lyle would raise her eyebrows at
him, as though she expected him to, and JJ always just raised his right back.
It hadn’t thrown her off yet.
Today, though, they were writing for most of the
class and then reading some examples of strong dialogue. Good. JJ eased into a
desk and pulled his black marbled composition book out from between his other
books.
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Ms. Lyle, eyeing his injured
hand. “What happened?”
JJ shrugged, pulling a pencil out of his pocket and
flipping the book open to write. Ms. Lyle just winced at the sight of the
bandage wrapped around his skin and flitted across the room to start taking
attendance. JJ smiled. This was why he loved Creative Writing and why Ms. Lyle
was his favorite teacher. Other teachers were instantly pissed off by JJ’s
nonresponses. They added other adjectives to the list they had running about
him in their heads. Words like “passive-aggressive,” “depressed,” “defiant.”
Then they either held his silence against him for the rest of the class, week,
or year, or they made it a goal to get him to speak by asking him as many
questions as possible. That always led to more monosyllabic or non-answers from
JJ, which led to more mental adjectives stacked against him in their heads. It
was a vicious cycle.
