Knockout Games

Fifteen-year-old Erica (who is white) feels like "the freak show coming to town" at her mostly black new school. Then Kalvin Barnes, the Knockout King, recruits her to film his violent TKO Club. When she begins to feel uneasy about her involvement and tries to pull back, life turns harrowing. Characters are well drawn and believable, and the story is well plotted and suspenseful.

Fifteen-year-old Erica Asher describes her new video camera as "a virgin waiting for something to happen." Her father gave it to her before her parents split up and she and her mother moved to St. Louis. Now Erica's the new girl at school, the big, red-headed white girl at a mostly black school feeling like "the freak show coming to town." But then her videos catch the eye of Kalvin Barnes, the Knockout King, who recruits her to film his TKO Club (in which a member is selected to approach a stranger and knock him or her out with a single punch to the head). Erica's videos record the violent attacks, and all of a sudden she's in with the TKO Club, friends with the tall, green-eyed Kalvin, and getting tons of friend requests on her new Facebook page. But when she begins to feel uneasy about her involvement and tries to pull back, life turns harrowing. Neri deftly handles various themes: being an outsider; the relationship between boredom and violence; doing what is right (and being labeled a snitch) versus keeping quiet and hanging onto her newfound friends. Particularly effective is the Gatsby-esque reference to eyes (or "eyez") and watchers: disembodied eyes on neighborhood walls and t-shirts; the Watchers protecting neighborhoods; and Erica's own all-seeing camera. Are they observing, or are they judging? Characters are well drawn and believable, and the story is well plotted and suspenseful, except for a jarring switch to a third-person point of view in one late chapter. Still, this is Neri's (Yummy, rev. 11/10) most powerful novel to date. dean schneider