Detention Land

"Detention Land" by Susan Orion is definitely an unusual book. There is a lot of potential but I found I could not quite grasp it. Roger is a 15 year old boy who seems be constantly in trouble at school and ends up in endless detentions where he is in a dialogue with a nameless voice through a speaker. The story alternates between when he is in detention and his journal. I definitely got the impression that Roger is very troubled and there is something going on emotionally and mentally. There were times when it seemed he either had delusions of grandeur or used his imagination to cope with his real life. At points, it seemed like his parents with possibly neglectful and abusive but the "voice" constantly downplayed that possibility so it was hard to know truth from fiction. I also got the impression that Roger was bullied. There were times when I could see the parallels to my own teenage daughter but it was not clear. All in all, I found the book a bit confusing but I am hoping that it will become more clear in the next book in the series. I received a copy of this book from the publishers via Netgalley for free in exchange for an honest review.

Two out of Five Stars