All the Castles Burned

Nye’s dark, unsettling debut novel exposes the vast differences between the privileged blue-blood students and the scholarship kids at Cincinnati’s prestigious private day school, Rockcastle Preparatory Academy. Lonely, awkward, 14-year-old freshman Owen Webb is desperate for the friendship of Carson Bly, a rich, handsome, and charming junior. Both boys love basketball, and Carson improves Owen’s game while subtly grooming the freshman for something much more sinister. Owen fawns over Carson, but his middle-class background means he will always “remain the lonely boy by the window, a child with no purpose but to observe the happiness of others.” Carson’s carefree sense of entitlement is exhilarating for Owen, despite warnings from a classmate, his mother, and Carson’s sister that Carson is dangerous and violent. When Owen’s family collapses under the humiliating weight of his father’s arrest, conviction, and prison sentence for burglary, he falls further under Carson’s unhealthy spell, leading to a fateful climax involving an ominous road trip. This is a suspenseful and memorable novel. (Feb.)