Myracle, Lauren. 
SHINE
New York: Amulet Books, 2011. 
IL YA
ISBN 0810984172

     

In the southern town of Black Creek, which has citizens that have issues of poverty, drugs, intolerance, and clan mentality, openly gay Patrick was brutally beaten and lies in a  coma.  Sixteen –year- old Cat, a friend of Patrick, has isolated herself from friends and activities for almost three years after an older friend of her brother molested her.  Cat feels if she had remained close friends with Patrick and  had not shut herself away from him and  her friends, he would not have been injured.  Out of her guilt and friendship for Patrick, she decides to investigate his beating, especially after the sheriff thinks the attackers were from out of town. He believes the attackers where college students from a nearby  town that were mad that Patrick would not sell them beer. Cat becomes suspicious of some of her brother’s friends as she searches for information.  She is told to leave it alone but after her self-isolation she is seeing people she has known all her life  through different eyes.  As she visits places Patrick and her use to hang out and she interviews mutual friends, she learns of secrets being kept by them, including dealing drugs and using meth.  As Cat discovers who the attacker was, she discovers truths about herself.  She comes to realize the strength she has to go against those she has known for so long in her town  as she searches for the truth concerning Patrick’s attack. 
(Booktalk by the Sequoya Youth Book Award committee, 2014)