Night Train (p)

Luke can't sleep. And even when he's awake, everything is a haze; he can't engage. He shouldn't have walked into the gazebo—Alex's family had moved out of that house years ago, so it was trespassing—but that isn't enough of a reason for Stringer to expel him, is it? This is Luke's third school; it would be Luke's third time.The senior exams are approaching, and Luke Leman hasn't finished the writing folder for Ms. Brennan. Worse yet, Luke's mother doesn't understand what's wrong and his sister Molly has begun to hate him. And Luke's dad, well, he hasn't spoken to Luke in months. Mrs. Lewis is right: Luke is in the top intelligence bracket of the population--he should be sailing through school.

This novel begins at teenager Luke Leman's funeral and jumps back in time to the days before his death. Told in the third person, the narrative sympathetically follows the people in Luke's life as they try to understand Luke's apathy: Luke's mother is confused, his teenage sister Molly is embarrassed and upset, and his father cannot understand why a boy given every opportunity decides to squander it all. As Luke slowly and unwillingly disengages from everyone he loves, he has one consolation: if he can prove to himself that the train that he alone hears at night is real—that the night train exists—then maybe his problems are not all in his head.