Product Description

Why are you here? Will was destined to be a pilot, to skim above surfaces. So why is he in wood shop class? He doesn't know -- or maybe he just doesn't want to admit the truth.

What do you know? When the local teens begin committing suicide, their deaths all have one thing in common: beautifully carved wooden tributes that appear just after or before their bodies are found.

What will you do? Will's afraid he knows who's responsible. And lurking just behind that knowledge is another secret, so explosive that he might not be able to face it and live....

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1033118 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-01
• Released on: 2002-09-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 148 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780064472029
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Chris Lynch has long been one of the most stylistically daring of teen novelists, and in Freewill, his innovative use of language redefines the possibilities of the genre. Strikingly, the story is told in second person. The voice is in the mind of Will, a boy who is moving in stunned bewilderment through a life leeched of meaning by the death of his father and stepmother in what may have been a suicide and murder. This speaker (who is not Will) constantly admonishes, challenges, and questions reality in clipped, enigmatic sentence fragments, and Will only occasionally answers back. The events of the story are dimly seen through this distorting haze of interior dialogue (as the events of Lynch's Gold Dust were seen through the protagonist's obsession with baseball).

Will, in a therapeutic woodworking class at "Hopeless High," has moved beyond furniture and garden gnomes to strange pole sculptures. There he is disconnected from reality and other people, except for occasional brief encounters with a tall black runner named Angela, who remains sarcastic and deliberately distant. When a girl from the school drowns in what is perhaps a suicide, a floral tribute accumulates around the death spot, with one of Will's sculptures as the centerpiece. A second possible suicide, and then two more are all marked with the strange poles, and a cult begins to grow around Will as the "carrier pigeon of death." A reporter forces him to see the connection between the sculptures and his father's ambivalent end, and Will begins to sink into total oblivion, saved, finally, when Angela and his grandparents reach out in "freewill," in this very dark, very odd, but riveting novel. (Ages 14 and older) --Patty Campbell

From Publishers Weekly
Will, a 17-year-old enrolled in a vocational woodworking class, falls under suspicion when his wood sculptures are found near the site of several teens' mysterious drownings or suicides. According to PW, this novel, narrated by Will in the second person, "focuses on the dark and murky corners of its main character's psyche." Ages 13-up. (Sept.)
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up-Will has lost his father and stepmother in an accident that might not have been an accident. He goes to a special school because he didn't take their deaths well, or so it would seem. A string of teen suicides occur and the story gets a bit muddled when Will starts blaming himself for the deaths. The confusion is compounded when some of the adults seem to blame him as well. Readers probably won't like Will or his ineffectual grandparents. His grandmother and grandfather seem more like scenery that wrings its hands a lot than family. Readers might like Will's sometimes friend Angela who might be a lesbian since she insists she doesn't date boys. They may also relate to some of the sprung-from-teen-angst observations and wisdom that pepper this strange story. What may confuse readers most, whether they are Chris Lynch fans or not, is the second-person narration. Some teens may actually spend a few moments wondering if they are just not skilled enough readers to understand this literary experiment. Most won't care enough to try.-Timothy Capehart, Leominster Public Library, MA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

confusing like cap'n jazz
This book is confusing. You may shake your head more than once throughout as you wonder what you may have missed. But, unlike the only other review that is currently posted, I intend to say positive things about the book.

1. Will's descriptions of what it feels like to be an outcast are wonderful. I speak to you as someone who was formerly known as invisiblegirl, so I know what Will was saying. And the way he said it, it was beyond merely true. True isn't a strong enough word. I felt what Will was saying when he said, "People are nearby, in front of your face or working shoulder to shoulder or whatever it is, but they are never ever really with you, are they? Nearby, that's the best they can ever be."

2. The book moves quickly which may feed to the confusion, but the story has a slow feel to it. You are inside Will's mind, the mind of a disturbed young man. There is a certain slowness that comes across in Will's thoughts that counteracts the fast pace of the book. The result is that the reader is able to get to know Will through the inner dialogue, his voices if you will. I feel that this "experiment" of the second person was well done. It accomplished what it set out to do, in my mind anyway.

3. This isn't your standard book, but it is worth the read if you choose not to be put off by the fact that the events of the novel are not really all that important. It may sound like they are when you're describing to book: 'a series of teen suicides leaves a young man wondering if he caused their deaths unknowingly.' Sounds like some kinds of a psychological thriller, doesn't it? It isn't. It is psychological all right, but not a thriller by any means. This book is an opportunity to really get inside a characters head, in a way that few other books allow.

I suggest you read it and decide how well you know yourself.

The inside scoop on FREEWILL
Brianna October 31, 2002

Freewill By: Chris Lynch ISBN: 0-06-028117-4

"Are you listening? No, LISTEN. Down at the pond last night. Sombody was killed." In this realistic fiction, Will wants to be a pilot, but ended up in wood shop. He makes beautiful things. All of a sudden, he starts making wooden carvings. When a bunch of teen deaths happen and he is blamed he starts to investigate uncovering secrets that nobody wants to know.

Freewill was a definite page-turner that you won't be able to put down. It touches on aspects in life that almost every teenager goes through. This type of book could almost be classified as a murder mystery. It definitly keeps you on the edge of your seat. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes murderous, scary stories and is above the age of 13. I say that because there are a lot of swearing in this book and the style of writing (second person) is a little bit difficult to understand. For example. "How does it feel? Is the job done? Did you kill it, him, us? It is gone, Will? Is it better? Is it worse? Is it finished, or is it the beginning?
Who did you hit? What did you hit? Did it hurt? Who did it hurt?" Now you might think that this is someone talking and just asking a lot of questions, but it's not. This is pretty much how the whole narration of the book is. I couldn't figure out if this was Will's inner thought's or maybe someone communicting telepathically with him or what because it uses the word 'you' when talking about Will. But other than that it is a great book. It did, like I said, keep you on the edge of your seat and left you hanging at the end. So if I controlled everybody's actions I would definitly say, "Go get a copy of Freewill and read it NOW!"

Can a question make a story?
Sure, stylistically this book is intriguing, but that cannot sustain a reader without a strong narrative pull. This book full of internal questions that eventually exhaust a reader does not develop a strong narrative. Nothing changes. I haven't finished the book--halfway--and am compelled to comment here and blow off some frustrations. Yes, the main character is frustrated, depressed, and floundering. So is the story. As a reader, I've been treading water for too long without any narrative goodies to rejuvenate me. Time to get out of the water.