Reviewed by Donna

TITLE: The Red Sheet

AUTHOR: Mia Kerick

PUBLISHER: Harmony Ink Press

LENGTH: 190Pages

BLURB: One October morning, high school junior Bryan Dennison wakes up a different person—helpful, generous, and chivalrous—a person whose new admirable qualities he doesn’t recognize. Stranger still is the urge to tie a red sheet around his neck like a cape. 

Bryan soon realizes this compulsion to wear a red cape is accompanied by more unusual behavior. He can’t hold back from retrieving kittens from tall trees, helping little old ladies cross busy streets, and defending innocence anywhere he finds it. 

Shockingly, at school, he realizes he used to be a bully. He’s attracted to the former victim of his bullying, Scott Beckett, though he has no memory of Scott from before “the change.” Where he’d been lazy in academics, overly aggressive in sports, and socially insecure, he’s a new person. And although he can recall behaving egotistically, he cannot remember his motivations. 

Everyone, from his mother to his teachers to his “superjock” former pals, is shocked by his dramatic transformation. However, Scott Beckett is not impressed by Bryan’s newfound virtue. And convincing Scott he’s genuinely changed and improved, hopefully gaining Scott’s trust and maybe even his love, becomes Bryan’s obsession. 
 

REVIEW:

I wish I could give a rating higher than 5 stars. The Red Sheet is the most amazing thing I’ve read in a long time and to tell the truth, I’m now hesitant to begin writing this review. I know that whatever I end up with is not going to do justice to this story.

It’s easy to tell you what it’s about. It’s about a high school student named Bryan who wakes upon morning with an altered personality and an undeniable need for a red sheet. The story follows Bryan’s quest to make changes for the better as he slowly regains the memories he has lost of a fellow student named Scott. But it’s not so much the things Bryan does that are important, it’s why Bryan does them.

I think this book is going to mean different things to different people and perhaps that will be influenced by our own life experience. What I focused on was the concept that fear is the biggest influence in our lives and if we could live our lives without fear, we would be completely different people. That’s an idea I can certainly relate to. I would think that’s an idea that most people could relate to.

Bryan doesn’t have a new personality so much as he no longer experiences fear and so he acts without considering the consequences to himself.I loved the different ideas Bryan came up with in his efforts to improve the world. The Social Justice League table would probably be my favorite but I also loved his wisely aborted FREE HUGS campaign.

I wouldn’t define this book as a romance. I would say it’s about Bryan’s relationships with the different people in his life, his parents, his friends and his peers at school. However, one of those relationships is with Scott, so there is young love involved.

Bryan and Scott’s relationship is complicated, for a couple of important reasons. One, Bryan doesn’t even remember who Scott is. Two, Scott hates Bryan, and everybody keeps hinting that Bryan did something unforgivably horrible to Scott. Bryan launches a campaign to convince Scott to forgive him without even knowing what it is he did. I was impressed by how well the author presented their relationship. Bryan’s desperate attempts to prove that he has changed and Scott’s slow steps towards forgiveness were almost inspiring to read while remaining completely credible and non preachy.

When Bryan finally does remember what he did to Scott, it’s all the more shocking because even though we get flashbacks of “Bryan the Bully” we know Bryan as the kitten rescuing, pro green campaigning, friend of the homeless that he is now. And this is why Mia Kerick is brilliant. If I was presented with a story that focused on Bryan and Scott’s budding romance and Bryan did that, I would scream and curse and moan that Scott should never forgive Bryan. But instead we’ve spent most of the story being shown how Bryan has changed and we already know he’s genuinely sorryand that he’s never, ever do anything that stupid again. This book convinced me, the queen of holding grudges against fictional characters, that forgiveness is always possible.

For the most part the story is sweet and encouraging with a definite comedic twist to it. Which gives the parts that inspire anger and sorrow that much more impact.

Who would I recommend this book to? Anybody who lets their fears rule them. Anybody who has ever been bullied or has bullied others. Anybody who is a leader. Anybody who follows blindly. Anybody who wishes they could make a difference but believes they can’t. Definitely anybody who loves a well-choreographed flash mob.

Everybody should read this book. Even if you take nothing from it other than the enjoyment of a well-written story, it will still be worth your time.

Or you could be like me and still have the story firmly planted in your head twenty-four hours after finishing it. And today as I walked through the park, I said hello to people, just like Bryan did. I’m not kidding myself, this book hasn’t miraculously changed my life but it affected me enough that I changed my behavior for at least one day. I can’t recall that ever happening before. And you know what, next time I need to buy new sheets, I really will consider making them red.

I shit you not.

RATING: 

BUY LINKS: Harmony Ink Press