The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban
I picked up this book because it was listed for someone that liked John Green's "Looking for Alaska." I don't think it was as awesome as that book, but I did enjoy it.
The book is told through CDs to Duncan by former senior classmate Tim. We know that something terrible happened at the end of the book, we know that Duncan felt responsible, and was worried that it would ruin his senior year at school, and that every student has to write a paper at the end of the school year called The Tragedy Paper. These students were at a boarding school that seemed just too perfect for me to believe. The food was amazing, the grounds were wonderful, there was hardly a teacher mentioned besides the English teacher that assigned the paper and the headmaster. The only homework these kids seemed to have was the Tragedy Paper, and the fact that this was a high school boarding school, seemed a bit ridiculous in the requirements that it had in it.
I liked the book, I liked the concept of the characters, I just didn't like the ending. It feel kind of flat, and when the tragedy ended up being what it was, I just lost real interest in the characters because nothing seems important. Duncan's character wasn't built up enough in the story to worry about what happened to him after this, and Tim's character was unreachable because Duncan only heard his story through CDs. The word magnitude was thrown around so often in the story, but in the end it fell short. I liked the book, but I don't know if I would pick it up again.
