(34) Redemption and Forgiveness

Title: Right Behind You by Gail Giles
Publisher: Little Brown
292 Pages
Genre: YA

Synopsis: Kip McFarland is living with a painful secret: when he was nine, he set Bobby Clarke on fire. And Bobby died.

After four long years in a juvenile ward, Kip is rehabilitated. He's got a new, "perfect" life. But no one knows he's got a past. No one knows about the nightmares and the guilt that torture him. They don't even know his real name.

What do you do when your past catches up with you again and again? When the journey to salvation always leads to a dead end? When the person you're most afraid of, the person you'd move anywhere to escape...is yourself?

Review: What a great book.  I was really impressed by how Gail Giles tackled this tough subject.  What Kip did was horrible and at first I wasn't sure whether to hate him or to feel compassion for him.  Giles takes you through therapy with Kip trying to discover why he did what he did and how he can move forward with it.  The book is written as Kip telling his story to someone else and there are places where the other person who isn't identified reacts to Kips story and I found my thoughts and feelings very much in line with this persons thinking.  Do you forgive someone for this horrible crime? How do you forgive them? Is that person still the same or have they changed? Can they find redemption or forgiveness and who do they ask forgiveness of? It is a book filled with no easy answers and even harder questions.  Sort of a young adult Jodi Picoult book that deals with the hard issues but doesn't really give you the answers.  It makes you see things from different sides and really take a look at yourself and how you would respond.  Highly recommend this book.