Face the Music

by Lesley Choyce

Overview

Tyler and Mason dream of escaping to the big city and getting started on their lives.

One night, Mason convinces Tyler to help him steal a car and they are soon having the adventure of a lifetime. Until they run out of gas. Stranded on the side of the highway, Mason blames Tyler, Tyler blames Mason and their argument turns physical. Their fight is broken up by a scruffy-looking guy who offers them a ride to the city. Eventually the teens realize their rescuer is none other than Sean Dakota, a heavy-metal musician who suddenly disappeared from the spotlight the previous year. Tyler is intrigued by this music legend, but Mason wants to take advantage of him. Listening to Sean and the lessons he’s learned from his own life choices, Tyler starts to realize how dangerous and damaging his friendship with Mason is. But will he find the courage to branch out on his own?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781459832909
Publisher:	Orca Book Publishers
Publication date:	02/15/2022
Series:	Orca Soundings Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	112
Lexile:	HL600L (what's this?)
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Lesley Choyce, who has been teaching English and creative writing for over thirty years, is the author of more than 100 books of literary fiction, short stories, poetry, creative nonfiction and young adult novels. He has won the Dartmouth Book Award, the Atlantic Poetry Prize and the Ann Connor Brimer Award. He has also been shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, the White Pine Award, the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award, the Aurora Award from the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association and, most recently, the Governor General’s Literary Award. He lives at Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia.

Editorial Reviews

Offers the reader a quick jaunt into the lives of two teenage boys…An interesting text for struggling teen readers interested in knowing how choices in life can make a difference and that toxic relationships need to end. Recommended.

CM: Canadian Review of Materials

2021-11-30
The first step in changing your life is admitting that there’s a problem.

After suffering ongoing verbal abuse at home, 16-year-old Tyler is convinced to leave his small town one night by Mason, an older boy with a worse home life and severe anger management issues. Mason’s plan—to steal a car and drive into the city—is thwarted when the duo run out of gas on the highway and are rescued by Sean Dakota, an intimidating former member of a heavy metal band who many assumed had died when he went missing from his California home a year earlier. Dakota temporarily takes the two misfits in, but when Tyler realizes how quickly Mason will bite the hand that feeds him and how one-sided their friendship really is, he vows to change. This novella may be short, but it provides a variety of topics for readers to discuss, and the characters have a surprising amount of depth. While some may question the relatively quick resolutions to Tyler’s problems, there’s still enough Sturm und Drang to make the ending seem plausible enough, and this is a strong choice for reluctant readers. Main characters are minimally described and read as White; Tyler’s grandfather emigrated from an unspecified non-English–speaking country.

Brief but memorable. (Fiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews