The Grounding of Group 6

The premise is thought provoking and I liked the way the story played out. However, I took exception to the language and the casual sex. Whether or not this is a part of teenage life, I think depicting it as such doesn't do teens any favors. Those who don't use this language or have sex will feel like they are on the outside of the "cool" group, and those who do will feel like their behavior is normal and should be continued. We ought to encourage and expect better of teens - and adults.

Imagine upper crust parents who find their children a nuisance. Not hard. Now imagine some of them so disinterested in solving their childrens' --often trivial-- behavior problems that they take advantage of the services offered by this elite boarding school: if you'd like to have your problem child - er - eliminated, the school will do so discreetly.

You have to like black humor or it will leave you cold. But Thompson has the perfect touch and balances the writing between truly emotionally horrific and campy. VERY funny in places, as the kids turn the tables on this Headmaster, who seems to be a cross between Tony Soprano and an academic nebbish.

A bunch of rich kids are sent to what they think is boarding school, and taken on an outward-bound style orientation. Turns out their parents have all paid to have them killed! Can they survive in the woods? Is their group leader a nice guy or a killer? What was going on in the seventies, man?

I just re-read this and it's still awesome! Hot hippie chicks, emo boys, survivalism... it really holds up.

Meh. This was neither as suspenseful or as funny as I'd thought it would be. The premise -- five teens are told they're going to a fancy boarding school when in fact their parents are going to have them killed -- is arresting and disturbingly plausible. But I did not find the book realistic and it seemed to drag on and on. The protagonists basically meandered from one action to the next, and the ending was far too neat and tidy for my taste. It bothered me that [SPOILER ALERT] the parents were never really punished for their actions.

It was a great idea but very poorly executed.

Five high schoolers are sent to (what they think) is a boarding school to get them on the right track. All of them have committed some type of misbehavior that has lead their parents to send them away--but none of them would have suspected that they were meant to be poisoned and thrown into a deep crevasse! No one expected Group 6 and their (young) advisor to make it back from their orientation camping trip alive...

While this book will seem fairly dated for today's reader, it is a lot of fun to re-visit if you read this in the 80s as a kid or teen. This is also a chilling story about parents wanting to have their children eliminated which may be a nice companion to a book like Neal Shusterman's Unwind (however Shusterman's world is show more infinitely scarier). There is some appeal for male readers in The Grounding of Group 6 as much of the story is revealed from the teen boy characters including quite a few (tame) passages about their sexual experiences. show less

A group of troubled teens is sent to a "last chance" boarding school, where they are taken on a nature hike and learn that their parents have paid extra to ensure that they don't return alive.