Dead End

by Jason Myers

Overview

Dru and Gina are young, in love, and can’t wait to get out of Marshall, Nebraska, a town where bloodline means everything and whoever has the money makes the rules. But all their dreams are shattered when Gina has a monstrous run-in with the son of the richest man in Marshall—an incident that leaves her broken, battered, and violated.

Driven by rage, Dru and Gina take matters into their own hands, and quickly find themselves in over their heads. Without any other options, Dru and Gina are on the run. But there’s more chasing them than they think, and love might not be enough to save them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442414310
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Publication date:	06/14/2011
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	936 KB
Age Range:	16 - 18 Years

About the Author

Jason Myers is the author of five teen novels, including his debut, Exit Here, which became a cult classic. He lives in San Francisco, California. Find him online at JasonMyersAuthor.com or follow him on social media at @JasonMyersBooks.

Read an Excerpt

Dru

PEOPLE LOSE THEIR WAY SOMETIMES. MOST OF THE time, they don’t even know until it’s too late and the damage is already done. Me, I never lost my way. Even on the run with Gina, I knew where I was going. I was with her. She was my path. She was my destiny. As long as we were together, the roads were set. It’s all that mattered.

When you’re with someone who makes you feel so good you ache during every moment you’re away from them, it’s impossible to truly get lost and stray from your path. She’s the only one I ever cared about from the exact moment me and Gina decided to make it happen between us.

Her beauty, her smile, her scent, her skin, the way my heart melted with every word she spoke; every time she touched me, even if it was just a slight nudge from her elbow or a quick touch of my hand, it was the greatest fucking thing ever. And, man, to think that some people may go their whole lives without experiencing that kind of love, romance, and intensity, it makes me truly sad. But at least I got it. I got everything from her, Gina King, the prettiest girl in the world. I was just sixteen and she was just seventeen, but my God, she became the pulse that gave me life. Nothing can ever fucking touch that. And nothing could ever be that damn good.

© 2011 Jason Myers

Editorial Reviews

Gr 10 Up—Dru Weiben, 16, and Gina King, 17, are in love as evidenced by their passionate sex life, described in raw detail from the first page. Dru comes from a troubled family; his brother is in jail and his drunk father drove off a bridge to his death. But Dru is the star of the wrestling team, and he is determined to be better than the assumptions people make about him. Gina also comes from a struggling family. The Aldersons, the local power family, own half the county in Nebraska and apparently half the law-enforcement officers as well. When the self-indulgent only son of this family rapes Gina and, in a tragic turn of events, ends up dead, the two young lovers go on the run. The corruption in the police force drives readers to believe that there is little hope for them, and eventually they are proven right in this modern tale with a Shakespearean ending. There are some good characters, and the sometimes-brutal passages will attract some readers, but a better choice might be Simone Elkeles's Perfect Chemistry (Walker, 2009).—Jake Pettit, Thompson Valley High School, Loveland, CO

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