Rating: 4 1/2 stars (Spotlight Review)

Danny is walking home on the snowy roads of Harvest Cove and hanging out with his friends when he gets attacked by something. He doesn't end up eaten, only bitten or, more accurately, stung by whatever this beast may be. Weird, but live to see another day, right?

Wrong. Danny realizes he's changing. He needs the cold more and more, and the entire time it seems like this beast is shadowing him. It's hard enough hiding his problems from his dad while simultaneously trying to get his friends to believe him, and when his friend Howie ends up attacked and stung as well, they find cases of their condition stretching back into the past as far as they can find. The boys realize their time is growing short and it's time to either flee and hopefully outdistance the beast, or stand against what may be an immortal monster.

I read a book back in '91 called Boy's Life by Robert McCammon. It's a fictionalized account of his childhood and it was the only book I've ever read where an adult accurately captures how it feels to be a child. It's taken 17 years for a successor to appear, but Graham McNamee has managed an absolutely amazing depiction of teenagers with Bonechiller. Four paragraphs (which is the size of the entire first chapter) set the locale and after that the story is non-stop and kinetic. There's a terrific cast of characters who work very well together, an incredible monster, some very intense emotion in scenes and a relatively breakneck pace. What sells the book is the absolute perfection with which McNamee manages to catch what it feels like to be a teenage boy in the beginning stages of a relationship: the awkwardness, the confusion, the fear and the absolute bliss when things go well.

Another thing I would like to mention is the writing; these teens act and talk like teens. There's no dumbing down their dialog or their actions for the target audience. Bonechiller was clearly written with the reader in mind, and I can say with assurance that there will not be a single teen reading this book saying, "Nope, I don't buy it." And if you're a parent and read it and doubt it, you really need to get more involved in your child's life, stat. Truly, my only complaint is that if they do a film adaptation, it'll have to be severely toned down if they don't shoot for an R rating. Seriously. Dammit, why couldn't there be young adult novels like this when I was growing up?
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Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Pub. Date: September 2008
ISBN-13: 9780385746588