A Perfect Mistake

I saw A Perfect Mistake by Melanie Conklin on the Virginia Readers' Choice list for this year for middle school books. The book description says, "Max wishes he could go back in time to before he was diagnosed with ADHD, before he grew to be the tallest kid in his class, and before he and his best friends went into the woods in the middle of the night. Max doesn’t remember what happened after he left his friends Will and Joey and the older kids who took them there. He’s not sure if he wants to remember. Knowing isn’t going to make Joey talk to him again, or bring Will out of his coma. When the local authorities run out of leads, Max realizes that without his help, they may never know what really happened to Will. Charged by the idea that he may be the key to uncovering the truth, Max pairs up with classmate and aspiring journalist Sam to investigate what really happened that night. But not everyone in the community wants that night to be remembered."

This was definitely an engaging story that I wanted to keep reading to see what really happened, but the book was also really hard for me to read because Max really just needed to talk to adults about things he knew. I spent a lot of the book frustrated and just trying to keep reading to see if he'd just get help. Also, the ending didn't really seem super realistic (like some people lied and did bad stuff and it didn't seem like anyone really got in much trouble--just some plot gaps it felt like). I did really like Max's uncle Cal as a character and Max's relationship with his therapist, and I thought the book did a great job helping the reader understand ADHD.

Rating: * (1/3 = It was okay)