Four expulsions. No hard evidence. One determined teen. James Patterson and Emily Raymond’s Expelled is the latest YA novel you won’t be able to put down.
James Patterson is a natural born storyteller. Take one scroll through his website and you’ll see a half-dozen books coming out within the next few months and many more in the next year. Not to mention his extremely robust catalogue of published works.
As a former librarian, I can attest that Patterson’s books dominated an entire case. Patterson is making moves to take over more than just the fiction section of your local library. Now, the children and young adult shelves (and most summer reading lists) include a Patterson title.
His latest, Expelled, written with Emily Raymond, follows four high school juniors. Theo, Sasha, Jude, and Patrick all share one thing in common, they were expelled. Three of them in connection to a photo posted to Theo’s anonymous Twitter account. And one for another, petty crime.
The school’s zero tolerance policy works against two, serves justice to one, and helps the fourth. A selfish mission winds up causing more collateral damage than intended. Under Theo’s leadership, the foursome comes together, with the help of some reluctant aids, clear their names. What they don’t anticipate is how much they’ll learn about one another in the process.
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‘Expelled’ Book Review
Expelled falls into the old adage, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” The tagline for the book reads, “Getting kicked out of school was the best thing to ever happen to her.” When Expelled opens, the reader is introduced to the voice of Theo Foster. I waited for the book to switch narrators, dive into Sasha’s story, or at least leave breadcrumbs to “her” alluded to on the cover.
But that never happens. Sasha’s mystery turns out to be a truly troubling secret, the kind that requires much more time to unravel than this novel is willing to spare her. An epilogue gives a bit of closure to her story, but it comes from an outsider who has no true insight to say whether or not things got better.
The story does not suffer by sticking to this narrative path, but it does cause it to falter as the ending draws near. Midway through the book, two questions are posed — who posted the photo and what is Sasha Ellis hiding? The first answer unfolds in a well-paced teen drama complete with various 80s movie references, an anti-prom, and heroically stupid acts of whimsy.
Expelled does succeed when it comes to Theo’s story. It explores the depth of his loss, the connection he feels to The Property (a piece of land that feels more like home than his physical house). It also explores something that most YA novels do not touch on in great detail — selfishness.
Rallying behind Theo is easy. The actions against him are wrong. He’s had a hard go of things. You want him to succeed. But then, when it comes time to set the record straight, to revel in his success, what does it bring? A good hard look at what motivated his actions. He may have fought under the guise of “Justice for all!” However, when it comes time to shed light on the truth, it turns out to be “Justice for one!”
And Theo is not the only person guilty of this.
The novel delves into the confusion, hysteria, and lack of maturity that comes with being a 17-year-old. Expelled reads like a John Green novel, complete with both mockery and inclusion of the manic pixie dream girl. Patterson and Raymond are able to channel the emotional heaviness of 13 Reasons Why with the fun, liberating tones of Paper Towns.
Expelled carves out a spot for itself in the densely populated YA genre.