Candor

Candor, by Pam Bachorz, is another great book with another great message:  When adults rule the world, they do it badly.  :)
      Oscar Campbell is the perfect student, son, friend, boyfriend, and criminal. He has a 115% average in biology, he makes his father toast every morning, he hangs with all the nerds so they won't feel left out, he eats carrot sticks in the movie theater with his girlfriend, the second-best student in the school . . . and he's busy undermining his father's Utopian society.  He'll sneak you out from the town of Candor for a "small" fee.  Candor, the town his father created after Oscar's brother died.  Candor, the town where everyone is brainwashed to do as they're told.  Candor, where every thing's perfect.  At least, it's supposed to be.  Oscar's the one anomaly, the one person in the town of Candor who knows how to block out the brainwashing messages.  But will he be able to help bad girl, new girl, Nia, overcome the evil charm of Candor, or will he choose to help himself instead?

Yet another book that I love.  What is there not to love about a book that suggests that kids do it better than grown-ups?  But it's fun watching how Oscar knows more than everyone else does.  It's fun watching him try to impress Nia, even while fighting his good-boy urges.  It's sad looking back into Oscar's memories, and it's heartbreaking how everything all falls into place . . .
      I won't give away the ending, but I'll let you know I have a love-hate relationship with it.  I love the characters though, especially Oscar.  He's exactly what you think he is, and you have to respect that.  Nia, on the other hand, is fun-loving and impulsive.  Not the best combination when you're trying to stay under the radar in a town where parents go to get their wild kids under control.  Sherman is a dirty pig who's trying, to the best of his abilities, to do what's best for him, and it ruins the lives of several people who you think shouldn't have their lives ruined--namely, the protagonists.  Mandi is just a brainwashed freak.  She sort of scares me, actually.  Oscar's dad, though.  Ooh, if I met that man in real life I would hurt him very badly.  He's worse than every villain you've ever met in real life or books, if only because he has no mercy.  I mean, sure, some villains in some may kill without a second look, but Oscar's dad is human first, or, at least slightly human, and then he condemns himself irreversibly in three pages.  It's sickening.  But at the same time, very enjoyable.  Humans impulses in a fictional setting is one of the best types of story, in my opinion, because it shows that humans all over the place, no matter where or when, are never perfect.  In my life, that is a very comforting principle to have.
       But yes, Candor is a book in which nothing is as it seems.  It may come off as perfect, but it leaves a slightly bitter aftertaste.  And the first taste is all the sweeter for that.