Us Kids Know

Two siblings want something (or someone) to change their uncomfortable lives—but is befriending a petty criminal upperclassman the best solution ever or the beginning of a big miscalculation?

“Gritty and dramatic.”—School Library Journal

“An unflinching exploration of teenagers hurtling toward a point of no return.”—Latifah Salom, author of The Cake House

Siblings Bri and Ray O'Dell are lost.

Anxious. Restless. Ray—bullied at his Catholic school for being small and timid—wants to be someone people respect or, even better, someone people fear. Meanwhile, his sister Bri knows that something is off about her friendship with the shiny, happy, sophisticated blond girls on her field hockey team. They don’t really understand Bri, and if Bri is being totally honest, she doesn’t really understand them either.

When storied delinquent Cullen Hickson enters the orbit of the O’Dell siblings, everything changes. Bri and Ray find an alluring, addictive outlet in Cullen. He introduces Ray to the singular thrill of crime—from breaking and entering to grand theft auto—and Bri quickly dives into an all-consuming romance with the enigmatic upperclassman.

Bri and Ray’s lives grow more and more entwined with Cullen’s, and soon their thrilling experiences descend into a series of events that lead the teens down a dark path—one that will forever alter the course of their lives.