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What the Other Three Don't Know

Is there any time in life that is more emotionally wrought than the teenage years? This roller coaster period, often difficult to navigate, is a time when teens feel out of sync; when their Inner and outer worlds collide. Spencer Hyde’s YA novel, What the Other Three Don’t Know (Shadow Mountain)masterfully captures these human contradictions as he exposes each character’s Achilles heel. Readers will cheer the risks the characters take and the triumphs they achieve.

Four high school seniors find themselves reluctantly linked in a Hell’s Canyon five-day rafting expedition on the Snake River in Idaho. Oblivious that their lives would soon be permanently connected, the four teens — Indie, Wyatt, Shelby and Skye — form an unexpected bond as they face a harrowing situation that no one is prepared for. Four strangers who, in the end, learn the truth about each other — not an uncommon plot in the YA genre. However, Hyde manages to breathe new life into an oft-told story. His writing is fresh and the dialogue rings true.

Indie tells the story. Indie’s words are precise, sometimes lyrical, and she doles them out to others sparingly. She has an obsession with words and an interest in all things journalism. Indie has grown up surrounded by the Teton Mountains, living with her grandfather “in a trailer the size of a nickel in a town the size of a postage stamp.” Indie’s word games are sprinkled throughout the narrative. Through the voices of his characters, Hyde reveals the paradoxical nature in the power of words — that they can connect, but also divide. When constructed a certain way, words can hide the truth. “What else are we made of? We’re just a big bag of words.”

Each character shoulders an obstacle or endures a loss. Indie is filled with overwhelming loss and cannot get over the horrific drowning of her mother two years earlier. “I stepped off the edge and into my grief. I felt the canyon salivate, open its mouth and swallow me whole.” Skye, a born athlete, is now forced to negotiate life with a prosthetic leg after losing his in a car accident. Shelby, the vain popular girl building a social media following, hides a secret behind her public Instagram profile. Glamping is more Shelby’s speed. She devours romance novels because “it’s nice to go into something knowing where you’ll come out.” And finally, Wyatt, conceals his sexual identity while suffering the abuse of an alcoholic father.

Hyde not only focuses on the duality of language, but he also addresses the erratic temperament of the river. The river is an integral character throughout the novel. Though luminous, it is not always clear. It evokes beauty, mystery and nature’s miracles, but it also holds harsh realities.

What the Other Three Don’t Know is a story about forgiveness, friendship and courage, but ultimately it’s also about being the captain of your own ship. As Skye tells Indie near the end of the book, “You have the power to change the story.”

For more on Spencer Hyde’s, visit his author profile.

What the Other Three Don't Know by
Genre: Young Adult
ISBN: 9781629727320
Joanne Shulman

Joanne Shulman is a former classroom teacher, past President of the Fairfield County chapter of the Connecticut Reading Association, literacy specialist and District Reading Coordinator for New Canaan Public Schools in Connecticut. She has read (and continues to read) literally thousands of children’s books, and has become a “go-to” resource for kids’ lit as well as an educational and curriculum consultant. Joanne is the creator of a specialty Facebook page for teachers, posting the best in current children’s literature. She lives in Fairfield County, Connecticut, in close proximity to her six grandchildren with whom she shares her love of books.

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