Haze

Haze
Erin Thomas

I’m the kind of person who has trouble starting new books. I’ll buy them, and plan to read them. But somehow there’s never time. My dad told me I should try reading Haze, so I started it on the spot. I got to page twenty-seven before we had even left the Bookshelf. On the way home, my dad tried to talk to me, but I had my nose in the book. I did not put it down once that day. I read it in the bath, I read it while I was walking downstairs, and I read it until I finished it. In other words, it was amazing.
   
I guess you could call me a mystery fan. I read pretty much any genre, but lately I’ve been on a mystery streak. So this was really perfect for me, being a young adult novel and all. I’m going into high school next year, so I connected that way as well. Haze is about a boy named Bram, who is in grade ten.  He’s joining a swim team that seems to have some shady hidden politics around it. One of the members of the swim team, Jeremy, is Bram’s friend. He seems about to reveal a secret. Then he’s hit with a car and put in the hospital. The book follows Bram  as he tries to figure out the secrets of the swim team, accompanied by the book’s love interest, Jeremy’s sister. The love interest is kind of clichéd, but it wouldn’t be a young adult novel without it.

I’m not exactly an expert on this, but I think the book gave an interesting view into the world of guys. The ways they talked, operated, and thought were all familiar to a girl going into grade nine. I laughed a few times at how male they all were. The other thing that was amazingly accurate was the swimming. I’m no Olympic swimmer, but I took my courses. All the swim strokes, and the emotions connected with the pool, brought to mind the laps we had to do when we misbehaved in swim class. It helped me connect to Bram.

And lastly, I found it nice to have a strong girl character in there. I mean, sure it was clichéd that she was the love interest, but she wasn’t really the basic weak girl. She carries a Swiss Army knife! Come on, that’s a cool girl. She was great, and she’s a good role model. So I think the book appeals to both boys and girls. Maybe she can teach a couple of lessons to some idiot boys.

I didn’t think the end solution lived up to the rest of the book, but it was good anyways. I guess I can’t say too much about that. But even then, it was better than a lot of other books I’ve read.

So in the end, I recommend Haze to all of you. It’s probably a book for readers aged twelve to fifteen, in my opinion. But I’m sure a lot of other people would enjoy it. It’s a great book for teens who don’t want to read adult mysteries because they want to read something about people their age. So read it! It’s short, and I promise you won’t regret it. 

- Zosha Matheson Dadey

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