When I Am Through with You

May 29, 2017
Early on in this relentlessly tense thriller, 17-year-old narrator Ben Gibson reveals that he killed his girlfriend, Rose, and is currently in jail. These revelations do nothing to lessen the suspense of the story that unfolds, which—like Kuehn’s (The Smaller Evil) previous books—delves into the psyches of conflicted and traumatized teens. Ben is less forthcoming about other information, such as the source of his debilitating migraine headaches, which slowly comes to the surface during an orienteering trip with several classmates, including Rosa, and a teacher on a nearby California mountain. The expedition does not go well, and personality clashes and questionable decisions give way to an encounter with a potentially dangerous group of strangers and a freak storm. And one of the teens has a gun. It’s a harrowing story that succeeds in keeping readers off-balance from start to finish as it explores the collision between desire and action in unpredictable physical and psychological landscapes. Ideal for fans of literary thrillers like Paul Griffin’s Adrift or Justine Larbalestier’s My Sister Rosa. Ages 14–up. Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

Starred review from June 1, 2017
A multiethnic group of teenagers goes camping on a school trip, but not all of them make it home alive.Ben Gibson, a white teenager, is writing his story from jail. Straight off the bat, he throws readers a curveball with two pieces of crucial information: he loved brown-skinned Rose, his French-Peruvian girlfriend of two years, and he killed her. What follows next is a measured and uncensored narrative leading up to that exact moment. With a disabled mother to care for, Ben doesn't have much hope for the future. The only spot of color in his life is Rose, but lately, their connection has been rocky. When he is asked to help lead a camping trip to the mountains for his school's orienteering club, he embraces the challenge. With Rose and six other classmates in tow, the adventure begins--and quickly falls apart. Bad decisions, questionable motives, and possible fugitives hiding out in the mountain trap the teens in a train wreck readers can't look away from. Hindsight is 20/20 as Ben explores his actions, and the more he reveals, the harder it is to take sides. Taut plotting combines with prose that's by turns delicately plush and trenchantly foulmouthed for a riveting experience. Full of secrets and plot twists, Kuehn's latest is a satisfying, sophisticated study in complicated relationships. (Thriller. 14-18)

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July 1, 2017

Gr 10 Up-The nightmarish story of a school camping trip gone wrong is told in slow, dread-soaked detail by Ben Gibson, a high school senior who is incarcerated for the murder of his girlfriend, Rose-one of a handful of people who didn't survive the trip. Eight students and their faculty advisor head into the California mountains for a three-day orientation trip, each with emotional baggage, secrets, and motives. They cross paths with a band of squirrelly adults who seem to be protecting a secret of their own, and things go downhill fast. Ben's history of trauma and his continuing abuse and their toll on his psyche are revealed layer by layer as the campers' situation becomes increasingly desperate. These teens are hyperaware of one another's pain and emotional needs, and the dialogue is sophisticated and a bit implausible. But the complicated actions they, especially the girls, take in the name of trying to push and save one another feel honest. Kuehn's trademark direct and taut prose and her unflinching examination of the aftermath of trauma keep the pages turning toward an ending that's muted and explosive, just like Ben. VERDICT A tense survival story and a grim exploration of pain, guilt, and choice. Purchase where the author's thrillers are popular.-Beth McIntyre, Madison Public Library, WI

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2017
Grades 9-12 Ever since his father left, high-school senior Ben has been making sacrificeslike saving his mother by killing his abusive stepfather, and giving up his future to take care of her after her car accident. It was different with his girlfriend Rose, though; she chose him, and he gave what he could to make her happy. When Ben and Rose join the orienteering club, their relationship is tested as a simple backpacking trip with six other students and a teacher turns into a nightmare of bad luck, terrible decisions, and disastrous consequences. Not everyone will make it back down the mountain, but of those who return, only Ben knows what happened to Rose. Ben, a sympathetic but increasingly mysterious narrator, tells the story from jail, an effective suspense-building tactic. Kuehn's (Delicate Monsters, 2015) solidly crafted novel is a complicated psychological study, which never breaks with Ben's perspective to further explain his motives, and a tense survival thriller involving sudden snowstorms and, less realistically, escaped convicts. This chilling, twisty tale will leave readers grappling with its uncomfortable ending.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2018
On a school hiking trip, an inexperienced and ineffectual orienteering club assistant, Ben, attempts to assert himself in a series of bad decisions, culminating in a disastrous outcome. Despite Ben's claims of best intentions, bits of disturbing information revealed in his dispassionate first-person narration call his account into question. This psychological thriller is an unsettling story of a young man wrestling with responsibility, indecision, and insecurity.

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

September 1, 2017
"I'm not sorry for what I did to Rose...Not for any of it," writes high-school senior Ben Gibson from jail, in the aftermath of a fatal school hiking trip. The novel then flashes back to the hike itself. Ben acts as assistant to orienteering club advisor (and father figure) Mr. Howe, but his lack of experience and inability to keep the other teens, particularly two intimidating senior guys, in line are soon obvious. In overcompensating for these failings, Ben attempts to assert himself in a series of increasingly bad decisions: insisting on following his incorrect navigation; cheating on girlfriend Rose, who is also on the hike; and, when the other teens sneak off to blackmail a group of supposed bank robbers, intervening in the conflict himself rather than involving Mr. Howe or the police. Multiple concealed guns, Ben's disabling migraines, and a freak snowstorm also factor into the trip's disastrous outcome. Despite Ben's claims that he has only acted out of love and in Rose's best interest, bits of disturbing information revealed in his often dispassionate first-person narration call his account and his motivations into question. Kuehn's (Charm & Strange, rev. 11/13; The Smaller Evil, rev. 7/16) latest psychological thriller is another unsettling story of a young man wrestling with responsibility and indecision, societal expectations of masculinity and insecurity, and his own unpredictable brain. katie bircher

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)