By: Mars Hauser
Endangered by L.R. Giles I have a disappearing-book problem. As the library purchaser and readers' advisor for a high school, I read an awful lot of young adult books. Every so often, however, a book or two that I've got to preview simply walks out of my hands and disappears into the room of my fifteen-year-old daughter, just like magic. I had real trouble retrieving my books by Lamar Giles to discuss them today. |
"I'm almost done," my book thief daughter claims. "They're so exciting, I have to go back and reread the best parts." Wouldn't I love the opportunity to do the same! Giles is an exciting writer, both in the sense that he is an Edgar-nominated suspense master, and in the sense that his early books promise bigger and better things to come.
No one calls the protagonist of Endangered by her name, Lauren. Instead, a past incident tied to her identity as biracial has her nicknamed "Panda", a name both cruel and affectionate. But Panda's secret identity is "Gray", the owner of the vigilante photoblog Gray Scales. Panda flies under the radar, careful to hide her skills as an expert photographer and to keep distance from anyone who might learn her identity. Having exposed the secrets of so many others, she's made enemies and she knows it. She tells herself she's righting wrongs by exposing the misdeeds of those who mistreat others in her high school community, and restrains herself in the face of her best friend Mei's enthusiasm for the gossip she provides.
Then Gray photographs and exposes mean-girl Keachin, caught having an affair with a teacher. The revelation rocks her school, but not as much as Panda herself is rattled when she receives fan mail for her expose from a "secret admirer". Someone knows her secret and can expose her to the world, the people she's hurt. What follows is a game of one-upmanship, with Gray's mystery rival daring her first to take more and more dangerous photographs and expose people more and more painfully. What starts as threatening soon becomes illegal, and Panda must race against time and even team up with some of those she's hurt in the past to figure out who's responsible. |
Panda stands as unique and memorable in a crowded YA suspense field for a great many reasons. "We're all something we don't know we are," she tells readers, and while at first she maintains a righteous pose for her photographic risk-taking, the ordeal she undergoes at the hands of her secret admirer gives her a different perspective on how she used her skill with images to portray other people in the past. I admired Giles for letting Panda be believably flawed: blind at times to the way her efforts to hide her photography might have gone too far, taking her friend Mei (also biracial) for granted and underestimating a boy who was the subject of one of her earliest cutting blog posts. I loved how Giles let her experiences grow Panda's character and ultimately change her for the better.
I also have to hand it to Giles on one other count: Frequently, one reads YA adventures about a character embroiled in suspense and dangerous situations, and finds them constantly and unbelievably fooling their parents with the wild things that happen. Spoiler alert: this is not that book. Panda's parents and the fallout from her activities that concern them are handled with realism and sensitivity, and in a way that never bogs down the suspense of the narrative.
I also highly recommend L.R. Giles's earlier book, Fake ID, which got him nominated for an Edgar Award and features a protagonist and other characters of color. For teens in your life who love well-thought-out mysteries, these books might simply walk out of your hands, too.