Book Review: The Most Dangerous Place by Lindsey Lee Johnson

Book Review: The Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Lindsey Lee Johnson

Publisher:  Random House Publishing Group – Random House

Where is the most dangerous place on Earth? According to the author it would be high school. This white school is in an affluent county in California so I didn’t really consider it to be all that dangerous.

The book starts with the suicide of a middle school boy named Tristan. He’s a social outcast and generally ridiculed by his peers. There is a girl that he has a crush on and he writes her a letter to profess his love. She gives it to the boy she has a crush on and he and his friends harass and bully Tristan online until he takes his life. I cried over the first few chapters.

The rest of the book starts in freshman year of high school. Tristan is rarely ever mentioned except in a joking manner. Each chapter is told from a different point of view and yet none of them really connect to each other. What started out as a story I cared about with a character I cared about (Cally, Tristan’s crush) went off the rails and never really came back to the track. At the end of the book I thought each kid was snooty, selfish, and stupid. Each chapter seemed to be an almost ripped from the headlines cliché about rich, white, high school kids and the stupid things they do and none of it was flattering. 

The writing itself is good but the format to this story was lacking. I would give the author herself another try but not if she sticks to the same kind of storytelling. 

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.