YA Book Review: CANARY by Rachele Alpine

Canary by Rachele Alpine
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Kate Franklin’s life changes for the better when her dad lands a job at Beacon Prep, an elite private school with one of the best basketball teams in the state. She begins to date a player on the team and quickly gets caught up in a world of idolatry and entitlement, learning that there are perks to being an athlete. But those perks also come with a price. The world that Kate was once welcomed into is now her worst enemy, and she must decide whether to stay silent or expose the corruption, destroying her father’s career and bringing down a town’s heroes.

This is one of those books where you know something awful is going to happen, and you read most of the book waiting for that something awful to come. And when it does . . . wow. I found myself so angry at so many of these characters -- some for what they did, others for what they should have done. This is an intense, emotional read. Kate is an excellent character -- relatable, frustrating at times, and real. Each chapter begins with a poem, and (different from a lot of books that employ this set up) these poems become functional at one point in the story. I highly recommend this book to teens, parents, and teachers.