A horrifying story of cruelty and bullying in a boys' school, where the headmaster uses a gang of thugs to ensure he makes a lot of money in the school's fund-raising drive

Phenomenal writing. "Uncompromising" is the word for Cormier's worldview. ( )

This book tells the story of young men at an all Catholic HIgh School that all have individual hardships and must deal with the consequences of living by somebody else's rules. There is a group on-campus called the "Vigils" and they basically call the shots at the school by hazing boys and mentally abusing teachers. One boy at the school defies the Vigils and sure enough suffers the consequences. There are a couple of very nasty fight scenes that you must have a strong stomach for. There are also multiple sexual references and profane language is also used. Finally, defying authority is another theme in the book, but honestly the other things might affect you passing the book on to a child before you really consider holding it back because of the authority issue. ( )

Power is being abused that the all male parochial school Jerry attends. The school is short on funds, so Brother Leon doubles the amount of chocolate the students are required to sell in the annual fundraiser. To aid him, he calls on the school's secret society, the Vigils, to make sure the sale is a success. The Vigils usually pull cruel pranks under the leadership of the budding sadist Archie. Just to show his power to Brother Leon, Archie "assigns" Jerry to refuse to sell chocolates for a set number of days. For reasons even Jerry can't articulate, he dares "disturb the universe" and refuses to sell chocolates at all. Cormier does a superb job of creating a disturbing and oppressive atmosphere. This book has been banned, but not for good reason. The book asks difficult questions that need to be asked. ( )

Jerry is at an all boys prep school with a very controlling secret society. He wonders if he should "dare disturb the universe," and in wondering this gets into a very tense conflict with the secret society. Well-written and still relevant today with bullying that can happen in any school. ( )