Quick on the Trigger

FORGIVE ME, LEONARD PEACOCK by Matthew Quick. Little Brown, August 2013.

Quick (author of THE SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK gives readers an inside look at a teen pushed beyond the fringe, tottering on the edge of life. On his birthday, Leonard Peacock hides a gun in his backpack and heads off to school. Today is the day he has selected to kill his former best friend and then himself. What else can he do? His mother is more than absentee, and his closest relationships are with his Bogart-loving elderly neighbor and his history teacher who is instructing less-than-enthusiastic kids about the Holocaust. Quick spins out the story of Leonard and how he has come to believe suicide is the answer in short bursts of information, always leaving the reader guessing and wanting more (sort of like Leonard himself who is trying best he can to figure out his path in this world). Leonard is a kid readers will come to admire: his sharp mind and quick sense of humor are winning. Because of that, readers will stick to this story hoping that somehow Leonard will find redemption and salvation.