The Best Liars in Riverview
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- ¥1,200
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- ¥1,200
発行者による作品情報
In the woods of a small Kentucky town, Aubrey sets off on a journey about growing up, self-discovery, and acceptance while searching for their missing best friend—perfect for fans of King and the Dragonflies and Three Times Lucky.
Aubrey and Joel are like two tomato vines that grew along the same crooked fence: weird, yet the same kind of weird. But lately, even their shared weirdness seems weird. Then Joel disappears. Vanishes. Poof. The whole town is looking for him, and Aubrey was the last person to see Joel. Aubrey can’t say much, but since lies of omission are still lies, here’s what they know for sure: For the last two weeks of the school year, when sixth grade became too much, Aubrey and Joel have been building a raft in the woods. The raft was supposed to be just another part of their running away game. The raft is gone now too. Aubrey doesn’t know where Joel is, but they might know how to find him. As Aubrey, their friend Mari, and sister Teagan search along the river, Aubrey has to fess up to who they really are, all the things they never said, and the word that bully Rudy Thomas used that set all this into motion.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After a miserable sixth-grade year, white Kentuckian Aubrey feels most comfortable in the woods, playing the Running-Away Game with their best friend Joel, who's biracial (Black/white) and "the same kind of weird" as Aubrey—interested in make-believe and the natural world. When Joel disappears one night, having experienced regular bullying at school, Aubrey has an idea about what happened to him but doesn't tell anyone, even the police and Joel's distraught parents, whom Aubrey says don't "deserve to know the parts of the story I'm leaving out." Secretly, Aubrey—accompanied by two trusted companions, schoolmate Mari and older sister Teagan—sets out on a trek into the woods to find Joel. In a sensitively written first novel, Thompson addresses issues of gender identity, privilege, and prejudice through a candid first-person narrative, filled with flashbacks and ruminations, that offers a window into Aubrey's and Joel's evolving relationship and internal conflicts. Set in a conservative, predominantly white Catholic town in which the community doesn't always warmly receive those it considers outliers, this heartfelt story shows rather than tells how friendship can lead to understanding. Ages 8–12.
