- Summary: Dougie and Andy are neighbors best friends, despite being completely opposite. Dougie is a loner who loves building model trains and tracks out of matchsticks. His best friend Andy is a jock and popular kid. They spend their spare time hanging out with each other and talk to each other nightly from their bedroom windows. Unfortunately, Andy isn’t alive anymore, but Dougie still sees him. The boys went into an abandoned home and set a fire to warm up. When the house goes up in flames, Andy goes back in to save a pocket knife he has bought for Dougie. From that day forward, Dougie has seen his best friend and suffered from PTSD. In a final act of anger and loneliness, Dougie’s obsession with fire causes him to burn down his own home.
- Textbook: This novel surprised me. Hautman did an amazing job of convincing the reader that everything in Dougie’s life was real, despite the subtle hints that it was not all fine. This novel addresses a major issue in regards to teenage PTSD, but from the sufferer’s perspective. Beyond the unique perspective is the realization that not everyone survives PTSD or is able to cope with the event that caused it. Dougie doesn’t take his medicine and continues to see Andy as a real person, even blaming a bomb threat phone call on him. His depression culminates in destroying his prized train models and burning his house down. Readers may feel like this isn’t realistic fiction, but it is. It is just the side of the world that no one talks about and that people don’t think truly exists.
Other novels by Hautman:
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