Laurie Halse Anderson is probably best known for her award winning novel Speak (it even got turned into a not-so-shabby television movie). I loved Speak, bought copies for everyone I knew and even pressed it on a few unsuspecting adults. When her last book, Prom, came out, I was pretty excited to get my hands on it. However, it didn’t ring true for me (girl who hates everything prom stands for and goes to prom) and I was gravely disappointed. However, her newest book Twisted finally gave me some hope. It was another one of those books where I couldn’t put it down, had to find out what happens next RIGHT NOW. No time for silly distractions of eating and sleeping.

Tyler has always been the scrawny punching bag of his school. Tired of being bullied, he decides to do something that will make him infamous—and it sure does, ending up with handcuffs, the back of a police car and a night in jail. With his brand new rap sheet and reputation to match, suddenly everyone knows Tyler—but it’s not quite the attention he was looking for. Yet, when the hottest chick in school, Bethany, starts flirting with him and hanging on his arm, Tyler can’t help but wonder if she’s really interested or just being punked. One night at beer bash gone horribly wrong, Tyler has his chance to find out. However, his decision leads him back down the path to social pariah. A few days pass and some indelicate pictures of his ex Bethany show up on the Internet. The police are back at his doorstep and Tyler has moved beyond infamous; he’s been skyrocketed to notorious.

While I didn’t grow up with brothers or know much about the mind of a teenage boy, Twisted smacks of the ugly truth of teendom. With a voice and style reminiscent of Patrick Jones’s Nailed, I would highly recommend Twisted to anyone who was the underdog in high school. (Not you? I hear the Gossip Girls series is decent.)