The Pact by Jodi Picoult

I read this terribly disturbing book this week. According to the author, it is used in schools for reading material. It's about teenage suicide. Rather than a Romeo and Juliet type story, this one is about two families who were very close and always expected their children to marry. Eventually, they did start to date. They were so much a part of each other, people never questioned that they would one day get married. The girl, partly from an earlier molestation that no one knew about, and partly because of the high expectations people had of her, decided she wanted to die. The boy was entangled in the whole affair and eventually was put on trial for first degree murder. Throughout the entire novel, I wondered if he had done it or not. You'll have to read it to find out what happened.

When I read this story, I was a bit depressed, and the story really took me down for a while. It describes kids as they really are and shows different ways that people deal with a tragic situation. It was good reading, but I would suggest that you don't pick it up when you're in a blue mood.