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School Library Journal
Reviewed on October 1, 2004
Gr 10-Up Sixteen-year-old Steve Nugent recounts the events that brought him to Burnstone Grove, a therapeutic facility for teens with substance abuse issues and/or suicidal tendencies. Intellectually bright, emotionally immature, and only moderately adept socially, Steve is coping with his mother's death, his older brother's suicide, his father's depression, and his own erratic behavior. With customary fluency when dredging these psychosocial swamps, Rapp creates a likable character leading an existence so grim that his crime...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
Horn Book Magazine
Reviewed on January 1, 2005
In typical adolescent understatement, seventeen-year-old Steve Nugent titles his therapist-ordered autobiography "A Pretty Depressing Time in My Life." It describes his stay at Burnstone Grove, a home for suicidal or drug-addicted teens, and records the events that led to his committal, including his mother's death from cancer, his brother's suicide a few weeks later, his father's depression, and his own out-of-control behavior. Steve's unassuming, prepossessing narrative settles for a tone of neutral objectivity as he ob...Log In or Sign Up to Read More