I read this wonderful book in two sittings--would have been one were not for my small children to care for!This book is a breath of fresh air in the YA genre that is so often a wasteland of trendy romance and/or bloodthirsty, amoral thrillers. It gives one heart to know that teen readers have an offering like this on the bookshelf. The story is told by Alex, a junior at a boys' boarding school. Alex has just witnessed the drowning death of a friend. The book is written as his purported journal as he struggles with what may have really happened that day, his feelings for his English teacher, Miss Dovecott, and the hidden agenda of his best friend who was there that day too.Hubbard's young male hero is fully human in his range of emotions--he has his lusty moments, as well as his feelings of guilt. The reviewer in Kirkus doubts that the 16 year old could write with the eloquence which Hubbard gives him, but I don't. Teenagers are perhaps MORE in touch with their eloqent poet-selves than are older people, it seems to me. I believed Alex's every word. This book rang true. And it rang deep. I couldn't put it down--and--can you believe it, no one had to speak in valley-girl slang, have random sex, get bitten by a vampire, or burned to death. It is a character-driven book.And it is also a thoroughly contemporary book in its structure--the short chapters and sub-chapters were non-intrusive and seem natural to the story, but also give it a very living, breathing, facebooking, twittering edge to the read.John Gardner, that great critic who wrote On Moral Fiction, would be proud of this first novel by Jenny Hubbard. He would stand and cheer for her. He would say thanks for believing in the YA audience and not talking down to them. Thanks for standing up for real literature, literature that shows us how to live, how to think deeply about write and wrong. Hubbard no doubt learned from writing this book, and we learn from her. To her, I'd say, keep teaching!