The main characters, Caleb and Maggie, were difficult for me to connect with and their voices weren't very distinct. Instead, it meanders episodically and little repetitively. Furthermore, the story doesn't really have any sort of narrative arc-it feels like it hits the restart button several times, and doesn't have a climax at all. It was all just a little too convenient-Caleb just happens to run into Maggie in the program, he just happens to return to juvie, where he just happens to talk to his old cell mate, who just HAPPENS to have valuable words of wisdom, and on and on. Take those problems and magnify them times what-the-heck-is-going-on-here, and you have this novel. God must really want these two people to be together.This book is the follow-up to Leaving Paradise, which I liked but had some problems with. But lo! The girl he hit with his car, Maggie, is in the program, too! What an amazing coincidence. He just has to go through a summer program to scare teens into not drinking and driving, which doesn't take place in Paradise. Now the boy with the black fire tattoo is back. But then Caleb decided he'd had it with his hometown and-extended metaphor alert!!!-exiled himself from Paradise. Returning to Paradise, Illinoise, he discovered his mom was addicted to prescription meds, his sister was emo (the horror), and the girl he'd run over-well, he was kinda into her. When last we saw Caleb Becker, he had just gotten out of a year in juvenile detention for hitting his sister's best friend with a car while driving drunk.
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