Jimmy

*** DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!***  I did like it though as it kept me turning the page and I hoped that Jimmy would make the right decision.  But I also knew he couldn't because he had already allowed the girls to see him and know who he was.

Talk about a book where one person's actions cause a HUGE ripple effect.  This was it.  It is a graphic and explicit book and one not to be read by anyone sensitive to bondage/sexual assault issues.  It was pretty strong stuff.   Let me see if I can sort out the characters and what happens.

Jimmy is a high school Senior with no real plans in life.  He is smart, funny, good looking and likeable....if you know him.  To others though he is an outcast of sorts.  Up until the past few years he had been picked on and bullied by a group of boys. Jimmy has developed a taste for bondage though and decides it is time to act out his most secret fantasies of kidnap, rape, and ultimately, murder.

Brett, the leader of the boys that have bullied Jimmy, is merciless and does not know that some of the other boys have had confrontations with Jimmy and are tired of picking on him and bullying him because they fear him.  They don't know why they fear him but he has started standing up to them and there is just something in his eyes that is not right.  But not Brett. He keeps on and keeps on.  He does not know about Jimmy's darkest secret though.

Alan is Jimmy's younger brother and looks up to Jimmy.  He starts to see that something is NOT right. He sees Jimmy go on bike rides at all hours of the day and night.  He sees that there is something in his eyes that is not right and his behavior is just off.  But he does not say anything to anyone.

Tina is a long time friend of Jimmy and likes him a lot.  He likes her too and they begin a sexual relationship just prior to going to the Prom together.  It is the first time either of them have been in a serious relationship and they are both enamored and in "love" with each other.

Samantha is the first girl that Jimmy kidnaps and hides in the storm shelter of an abandoned house.  He does not really have a good plan but is fascinated with hanging her from her wrists.  He has not considered the whole plan though.  He just knows he is going to keep her there til he is done with her and then kill her.

Meagan is Samantha's best friend and is the ONLY one other than Samantha's mom that believes she has been kidnapped.  Meagan's father is the Sheriff but they don't have a good relationship so Meagan does not go to him with her fears and theories.  Instead she sets of on her own search and ends up running into Jimmy.  He actually set it up where she would run into him so he could kidnap her as well and take her to the shelter.  This is where Jimmy's plan goes terribly wrong for him.  He cannot control Meagan like he controlled Samantha.  She fights him and causes him to panic.  During one of their fights he hits her in the face with a metal bucket and ends up killing her.

It all unravels on Prom night.  Jimmy made the mistake of throwing away all his bondage videos that he had been collecting in a trash can at school.  Brett and his friend find them and decide to use them to lure Jimmy to the old house where they can beat him up.  Jimmy beat Brett's friend almost to death and goes to the house where he shoots Brett, shoots his brother by mistake, and allows the police to shoot and kill him.

Now for the ripples that spread from there.....  As I said, Meagan died.  She was not even supposed to be there in the first place.  Jimmy dies, leaving behind a girlfriend who is confused and wonders if there was anything she could have done.  Samantha lives but finds out she is pregnant and at the end of the book is getting ready to down a whole bottle of sleeping pills.  While recovering, Alan is trapped in the house when someone firebombs it and he is burned to death.

So one boy's decision to kidnap one girl ended up tearing apart a whole community and causing a family to lose both their sons.  This was a dark book but shows that one person's decision for good or bad can cause a world of difference in everyone else's lives.